The Power of Positive Thinking - Posted by SCook85

Posted by SCoo85 on December 12, 1998 at 16:58:27:

Jim,
I started this business with no money. My first deal was one in which I put down a $200 earnest money deposit on an REO. That one was scary I almost did not get it done. I didn’t get my mortgage approved until the day before settlement. I was to scared to call the private investor, but when I called him he asked a few questions and I had a mortgage. I rehabbed my first deal and moved into it.
All my deals to follow were flips. I found an all cash investor that was agressively buying and just started finding homes for him. I flipped 7 homes to him at $1000 each.
I found my sources for financing by asking other investors where they get there money from. They all don’t give out there best sources but they almost always give me someone. I was also told to call settlement attorneys and ask them if they knew of anyone who might be interested in funding my deals. I did this and it worked well. I got a few more leads that way.
I don’t know if I have a favorite kind of deal. I guess flips are always exciting. I’ve done a few paper deals, I’ve retailed one home and am rehabbing 2 as we speak. I want to start making bigger money but am finding that rehabs are headaches. Flips are quick easy money hard to beat.
My goals are to continue to do a lot of flips while getting much more involved in the paper business (creating my own notes). I’ll probably have 1 or 2 rehabs going at all times.

SCook85

SCook85

The Power of Positive Thinking - Posted by SCook85

Posted by SCook85 on December 11, 1998 at 08:26:20:

As many of you already know back in June of this year I quit my job to jump into real estate full time. I took the real estate world with one goal in mind and that was to make deals happen. I never wanted to go back and get a job again. I touted my own horn so much there were no other options I had to succeed. 3 months after leaving my job I had more money then I ever had in my life, things were easy. The money was coming in at 3 times the rate of my job. Nobody could stop me. Steve Cook quickly became a respected name within the Baltimore investment community.
Prior to my decision to leave my job, my wife and I were having problems and we seperated. While we were together I didn’t even give consideration to leaving my job. After she left I thought “what the heck? just do it.” On September 17, 1998 my daughter Maislee was born. (yes my wife was pregnant when she left). My wife was and still is limiting my involvement with my daughter. I tried everything in the world to work the situation out and lost focus on real estate. Everyhting to her was how much money am I going to get. I didn’t want to make money anymore. My attorney told me that the more I made the more she would get. When this whole process started my response was I don’t care, I’ll just have to make more money. As things progressed I despised the thought of my wife benefiting from my success (after all she didn’t want me investing at all). I went into a major slump. Friends and family started to worry about me.
Then one day a friend of mine who was in a slump as well (this guy has a PHD in Psychotherapy) told me that he finally realized that he chose to be depressed and down and that he didn’t have to be. I thought about that for a little while and realized that it was myself that was bringing me down and that only I could bring myself back.
I was sitting on a couple of bad deals and didn’t know what to do with them. I tried and tried to bring myself back up to the levels of a few months ago. It took a couple of weeks to get my whole frame of mind back. I went out got my deals done; I didn’t make much money on them but I got them done. I then went out and started making offers again. I made about 40 offers in the last 1-2 weeks. I have been signing contracts again, I have lined up additional funding sources, I have just signed contracts on the 2 best deals I have found yet. I’m back and on my way to a successful real estate investing career. The power to be successful is within every one of us. It is a matter of believing in yourself and moving forward with it. Negative thoughts will do nothing but bring you down. I literally had to stop doing everything for about a ten minute period everyday just to keep telling myself over and over that everything was going to be OK. I had to cast the negative thoughts to side and substitute them with Positive thoughts. It took me a couple of weeks to really believe in myself again but it worked. I’m back and will be doing more deals then before.
For all of you who don’t know if you can do it please read this over and over. I am no better than any of you, within yourselves you can find the power to do anything you want to do and when you really believe in yourself it’s easy.

SCook85

Re: The Power of Positive Thinking - Posted by Johnman

Posted by Johnman on December 11, 1998 at 17:09:13:

I’m like the others, just overwhelmed with your post. Being positive will bring you success and happiness. I used to be a negative person and I did hang around people that saw everything negatively. After a while I started to notice that I was tired more and depressed more. Until I met this man named Don Lee. He was so positive that he sees positives in negative situations. I have been a chaged person since then. I just need to work on how to express myself in more refined manner.
Thanks for your post.
People love to hang around people that are positive!!!

Thanks for the inspiration - and a question - Posted by Jim Simons

Posted by Jim Simons on December 11, 1998 at 12:07:18:

Thanks for your very inspiring post. Like you, I believe it can be done. However, it seems like I keep running into road blocks.

If you don’t mind my asking, How did you do it?

-Did you have a lot of money saved up.
-If not, how did you find the sources for financing.
-What kind of Deals did you start with.
-What kind of Deals are your favorite now.
-How has your investing plans changed since you started

I realize this is a lot to ask for, and if you don’t want to respond to all this, I will certainly understand. I’m just hungry for all the information I can get.

Thanks and God Bless

Re: The Power of Positive Thinking - Posted by MilNC

Posted by MilNC on December 11, 1998 at 11:50:42:

I CAN do this RE investing with the help of this board.
I CANNOT be a jet pilot, no matter how hard I try, plus I’d have to apply, and ask permission. (I choose my
goals from a carefully selected list of realities.)

Neat thing about REI, is you don’t have to ask permission, apply to school or a job, and you can’t get fired.

I have been doing just what you described: foil negative thoughts, and substitute positive ones: “I can do this”. “I already have some experience-even if it
was negative” (School of hard knocks–ME!)
“I will succeed”. To me success is to just substitute
for my former profession, and then keep on going–add
some zero’s.

I’ve been burnt by real estate agents, my own atty,
and contractors, yet I find such great support on this
board I just put it all in perspective.

Thanks for the good thoughts.

What you did was be like the article posted here, I think the title was “Be a Friend First”. It was rather
Zen. One of the most inspirational articles I’ve ever read. It recommended “don’t be involved in the outcome”
just do.

Naturally we want to use our time wisely, and we want not to have legal problems, but other than that, after picking a system or market that we are good at or comfortable in
and forearemed with knowledge, there is the doing and the being and becoming.

When I was sailing and studying sailing, I decided some of the techniques were an anaology to life: When you are becalmed in windless waters,
you must take the rudder and move it back and forth to create eddy currents. Sometimes then the boat will
be directed by the currents and move out of the becalmed waters. And then you take it from there.
It doesn’t much matter where, because the point is to
regain control of the sails.
(Hard to apply this to life when YOU’RE the one
in the boat, as I found out, but it sounds awfully
nice, and you can at least try to apply it!)

I’m glad you found your way again, and thanks for
posting to us all.

Re: The Power of Positive Thinking - Posted by Javier (Javi)

Posted by Javier (Javi) on December 11, 1998 at 11:44:54:

I can’t thank you enough for your post. I just had a little conflict at my job which may end up in “me being fired,” I have fear. But I hope to head in the right direction: REI.
I can’t let this opportunity go.
Thaks again,

Javier

How do we spell “inspiration”? - Posted by Lette

Posted by Lette on December 11, 1998 at 10:33:09:

S - C - O - O - K - 85. Gosh, I can’t remember your real name. Thanks for the inspirational story. Came just in the nick of time.