marcus's blog

Investment Property Quest - Day Four

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 14:05:48 -0800

Yesterday I was able to find some better resources online. Turns out that for this area there are three good online resources I've found so far. The first one I found a couple days ago--an MLS system called REIN that lets you view listings online and subscribe to get updates when new listings come out. I don't know yet what the deal with it is--if it's the full MLS, how often it's updated etc. etc. Yesterday I also found the "normal" classifieds for the two major newspapers online where FSBO's (for sale by owner) are listed and where realtors advertise. It was kind of a maze to find them online since I kept getting redirected to the REIN system.

Investment Property Quest - Day Two

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:24:30 -0800

I don't plan on posting an update every day on this, but I thought I'd list what I did today:

I bought a map of the area to mark where I've been and what houses I've looked at. I'll use this to get a feel for property values and rental prices.
I read chapter four on real estate in Multiple Streams of Income to get some ideas on how to finance the property once I find it. The chapter also had some cool charts with questions to ask sellers and a way to rate properties on investment potential.

Investment Property Quest - Day One

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 19:24:35 -0800

Today I made the decision to stop over-analyzing and fulfill my goal to buy an investment rental property to generate cashflow and take some action. I plan on documenting the steps I'll take to buy the first property here on Enrichr.com so others who are interested, but haven't taken action can learn from my mistakes, and hopefully success. I'm guessing the process will take about 3 months since I'm pretty deliberate in my decisions.

Make Them Go Bananas

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 18:24:16 -0800

Much of what success in business is comes down to marketing. This morning I watched a video with David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of an immensely (and very quickly) successful web programming framework. When asked how he became so successful so quickly, he replied:

"[By] making a stir, taking a big target and picking on it... you just have to poke at them a little bit and they'll go bananas and link to you like mad. And if you poke them in the eye, they'll go even better bananas."

Becoming More Creative

Sat, 07 Jan 2006 14:24:05 -0800

One of the conclusions in On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins, the scientist and founder of Palm and Handspring, is that creativity happens when the brain mixes and matches patterns from previous experiences. This means that people with more experiences have more potential to be creative.

Practically this means that the more experiences I have, the more patterns my brain can draw from to come up with unique solutions to problems.