Project hWOODS!

Ok, we have started work on our second project - hWOODS! This was a foreclosure and was pretty rough when we arrived. As you can see, nasty carpet, interesting paint colors and no toilets in both bathrooms!?!!? Well you know what they say, where there is no toilets, there is opportunity! As always, we busted out the sledgehammer and took care of the demo...take a look!


Hmmmm.....what to do what to do...




Ah yes, bust out Mr. Sledgehammer.

Perlman sweatin' his rear off - its hot in Deeeeetroit!

My wife with a sledgehammer - watch where you are aiming that thing! ;)

Project BHAM Demo!

From: Corey Perlman, Co-Founder and CEO, InvestorTeams.com

We successfully demoed two bathrooms and other rooms in our birmingham flip. Just in time too, as we are closing on another house this Thursday! It's time to leave the rest of the Birmingham house to the professionals and get smashing on the new house. By the way, if you haven't demolished a room in a house before, I'd highly recommend it. I think i officially relaesed 10 years of stress in each bathroom. Theraputic!

What is a “Quagmire”?

Wikipedia says a “Quagmire” is a word referring to a swampy area or intractable situation. It’s also a word I’d use to describe what happens to companies every once in awhile. They get stuck in a quagmire…and sometimes they don’t even know it.

The fortunate thing for us is that we all, the executive team, acknowledge that we are in a technical quagmire of sorts. We have stuff that needs to get done but it can’t get done before we get some other stuff done…that currently, we have no idea how to get done (I sound like Donald Rumsfeld!).

Anyhow, starting a business is awesome, exciting and fruitful…but it ain’t all wine and roses (usually more wine than roses…c’mon, there are three guys running this thing).

Just wanted to let all you faithful blog readers know that we don’t always have our rose colored glasses on. If I can think of another metaphor having to do with roses I’ll let you all know.

More to come!

InvestorTeams.com first Rehab!

Fellow Investors,

Your friends at Investorteams.com are always looking for ways to build our credibility as real estate investors. Even though we've bought and sold properties before, we've never done an official rehab. So we thought, why not try it when the economy is bad and real estate is even worse. If we can do it here, we can do it anywhere! :) It's already been quite a ride as we got a pretty good deal in the beautiful city of Birmngham, Michigan. We know we got a good deal because after our offer was accepted, the buyer has been looking for ways to get out of the deal. We later found out that multiple offers had come in at full price and now the seller wants out.

This comes to our first lesson: If you plan to be on the mortgage, make sure you are on the purchase agreement. I wanted the mortgage in my name, but my partner was the one who put the original offer in. My banker needed my name on the contract to do the mortgage in my name. The seller said that if we added my name to the contract, that would be the change he needed to get out of the deal. BUT, we are flexible and the mortage will simply go in my partner's name. But lesson learned!

More to come as we start the bidding war to see who wants to work on our house!

To Greater Success!

InvestorTeams.com

Marriage and Credit Card Software!

We’d like to wish Corey and his Fiancé (soon to be wife) Jessica, all the best in their new lives together!

On a business note, we’re going to be implementing the software and processes to start charging credit cards. That is very exciting because we’ll be generating revenue for the first time in our company’s short history.

So far it’s been a bit of a tech headache but I’ll keep you all posted on how it goes.

More to come, stay tuned everybody!

Real Estate Investing is Exciting!

I was watching Robert Kiyosaki on one of his DVD's and he made the statement that Investing is actually boring. I want to respectfully disagree with the master, just for a second.

Maybe it is because I’m fairly “wet behind the ears” but I find it extremely exciting!

The other day I was lucky enough to ride along with a couple good friends of mine to see a foreclosed property. This place, while it was definitely was a dump, was in a great neighborhood, on a nice street in a decent location. Most every repair will be cosmetic. Even though I had no skin in the game, I got really excited for my friends and the potential of this property.

See, if you are like me, you get excited about rehabbing, wholesaling, land lording and anything else Real Estate investing related.

There are a few parts to this, at least for me. The first part is taking something that someone has said isn’t worth much and then through your efforts making it worth something to someone else. The other thing that excites me is that we are slowly but surely chipping away at the urban blight plague we’re experiencing here in sunny Detroit, Michigan. Lastly, there is the money. Who doesn’t get excited about money?

See, I believe we live in world of abundance if we choose to view it as such. I’m not talking about being greedy either, I mean enough for everybody. Take rehabbing for example; buy cheap (employ a mortgage broker and a buying RE agent), fix up (employing workers while you do it), market (employing a selling RE agent) and sell it for a fair price to someone who will make it their home. Not only have you taken an eyesore of a house and made it beautiful for someone, but you’ve also just employed 8 or more people depending on the size of your flip. You can’t tell me that’s not good karma!

A great turnout for our first networking event

You never know what type of attendance you are going to get on a Tuesday night at a local bar - even if it's for a good cause and some great networking. BUT, we were pleasantly surprised by well over 100 local business professionals who came out and had a great time at Goodnite Gracie's in Royal Oak, Michigan. Some great money was raised for the Canine Castle Dog Rescue and my two colleagues, Bill Crawford and Andrew Tocco, were put to the test as guest bartenders for the evening. It was great to watch Andrew's face when he was first asked to make a apple martini. He calmly replied, "I think you'd rather have a Michelob Light". She said no and he was forced to comply. By the end of the night, he was flipping the shaker behind his head like Tom Cruise from Coacktails and I heard one lady say it was the best martini she'd ever had. Way to go Andrew and Bill!

Thanks to everyone who came out and supported InvestorTeams.com that night. We had a great time and can't wait to do it again this summer. Till then! Corey, CEO, InvestorTeams.com

Rich Dad's Phillip Lechter Video Interview!

Watch our Interview with The Rich Dad Company’s Chief Communications Officer, Phillip Lechter!

We’ve got the entire thing here for your viewing pleasure!

Interview Part 1 of 8


Interview Part 2 of 8


Interview Part 3 of 8


Interview Part 4 of 8


Interview Part 5 of 8


Interview Part 6 of 8


Interview Part 7 of 8


Interview Part 8 of 8

Entrepreneurship…A Fickle Beast!

With a title like that I feel I should qualify, my life is great, I love life, I love the company we are starting and I’m excited to get out of bed everyday.

That all being said, it’s important to note that there are two kinds of people in this world, entrepreneurs and those who would love to be entrepreneurs.

This post is for those of you who would love to be entrepreneurs…disclaimer, we’re not all Bill Gates, the lady who invented “Airborne” and the guy in the Charles Schwab commercial that retired early to start his own winery…most of us are schmucks with a dream, we’re not the smartest, coolest or even best looking people around…okay, definitely not the best looking people around…anyhow, what I’m getting at is starting a business ain’t easy, in fact it’s really hard. Sometimes you look in the mirror and think, “what the heck am I doing!”

Let me give you a scenario…guy goes to work, some things go right, but a lot goes wrong, really wrong, then the head trash builds up and this guy is thinking, “Man this stinks, I stink, what in the cheesy mashed potato am I doing in the business world, I should go paint by numbers in a rubber room.” Then he comes home, eats dinner and plays with his dog a little bit. After awhile he goes into his home office, fires up the computer and all of a sudden it dawns on him…”THIS IS WHY I’M DOING THIS!”...See, he’s an entrepreneur; its par for the course to make mistakes. You just need to make sure you learn from them. He’ll look back on this crappy day and think, “Well, it was a great experience and I’m better off for it!” So that guy smiles, shrugs off the day and works into the night to make his dreams a reality.

That’s being an entrepreneur, it’s not all wine and roses, but it sure has its moments…

P.S. The guy I described is a good friend of my second cousin, you wouldn’t know him…he’s from Europe or something…

InvestorTeams puts on the eBoot Camp III

Yes, we are at it again! A full day of teaching our audience how to create a successful online business. I get such a satisfation of watching a group of people going from normal citizens in the morning to Official Propeller Heads at the end of the day. The leave with the passion and knowledge to take their business to a whole new level using the power of the web. We will be at the Wayne County Community College Western Campus this Saturday, January 27th from 9-4:30pm. It's going to be a blast!

Corey P.
CEO, InvestorTeams.com