As I'm sure you've heard, online video is the new thing all the cool kids in marketing are doing. It's fast, easy, cheap or free and it really works.
Up until this point, the main drawback has been that it takes so darn long to upload the videos to sites such as youtube.com and others. Imagine if you are trying to upload your videos to more than one site, it could take you all afternoon!
Enter www.TubeMogul.com -- a free website that will literally save you hours each day in uploading time. TubeMogul allows you to upload, tag and title your video ONCE and then sends it to about 15 other video sites (like youtube.com, dailymotion.com, etc).
Pretty awesome, huh?
Friday, March 6, 2009
Congratulations to Milton and Sequoia Dugger!
Milton and Sequoia are proud owners of a beautiful 3 bedroom home with stainless steel appliances and upgrades throughout the home. This home was built in 2006. Their rent at their old 2 bedroom appartment was $885/mth. Their current mortgage is only $866/mth.
To make it even better, they only had to spend $700 of their own money to buy this home. We were able to get them $10,000 of 0% interest money from the state to pay for their down payment and closing cost.
To make it even better, they only had to spend $700 of their own money to buy this home. We were able to get them $10,000 of 0% interest money from the state to pay for their down payment and closing cost.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
FANNIE BACK TO 10 PROPERTIES!
Effective March 1, 2009 Fannie Mae will allow investors to own up to ten (10) financed properties based upon borrower eligibility requirements. This is a much anticipated and welcome change to regulations that temporarily sidelined seasoned investors who owned more than four (4) financed properties. Fannie Mae returned to the ten (10) property limit because experienced borrowers will play a key role in the housing recovery.
This change in Fannie Mae regulation will allow investors with 4+ properties to resume purchasing property for investment or resale. The goal of this change is to help stimulate the current housing market and in turn help stimulate the overall economy.
Click here for Fannie Mae guidelines...
https://www.efanniemae.com/sf/guides/ssg/annltrs/pdf/2009/0902.pdf
This change in Fannie Mae regulation will allow investors with 4+ properties to resume purchasing property for investment or resale. The goal of this change is to help stimulate the current housing market and in turn help stimulate the overall economy.
Click here for Fannie Mae guidelines...
https://www.efanniemae.com/sf/guides/ssg/annltrs/pdf/2009/0902.pdf
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Recent Activity vs. Debt-to-Income (DTI)
I get the questions all the time from interested buyers, "How much am I qualified up to?" You would think this would be a simple mathematical calculation based on your current "Debt Service" compared to your "Gross Income". Not so fast... What people don't realize is the DTI Ratio changes based on your recent credit activity.
If you have recent negative trade lines on the credit report, a lender will adjust your allowable DTI from a perfect case of 55% down to 35%-40%.
What does that mean to you as a buyer? That means that the amount that you are qualified for could drop THOUSANDS of dollars just because you had a 30 days late pop up on your credit report.
Moral of the story is to ALWAYS pay your bills on time. If you have any recent credit issues and you are looking to buy a home, you should talk to a professional credit repair service.
I recommend Jason O'neil with Franklin Financial Group. His number is 904-637-4271 or you can visit his website at www.franklin-finance.com.
Good luck!
If you have recent negative trade lines on the credit report, a lender will adjust your allowable DTI from a perfect case of 55% down to 35%-40%.
What does that mean to you as a buyer? That means that the amount that you are qualified for could drop THOUSANDS of dollars just because you had a 30 days late pop up on your credit report.
Moral of the story is to ALWAYS pay your bills on time. If you have any recent credit issues and you are looking to buy a home, you should talk to a professional credit repair service.
I recommend Jason O'neil with Franklin Financial Group. His number is 904-637-4271 or you can visit his website at www.franklin-finance.com.
Good luck!
Breakdown of the 7724 N. Pearl Rehab - with before and after pictures!
On Feb 20th I posted the exterior before and after pics of 7724 N. Pearl Street, now I wanted to go a little more in depth on the rehab job we did over there. When we rehab a house for re-sale, we always try to add a master suite - a master bedroom with a master bathroom and walk in closet. A lot of times it takes more work because you have to move walls and rearrange the house layout, but it is almost always worth it- houses with master suites are MUCH easier to sell, because that is what buyers these days want. Here is the before and after property layout (which we draw up and give to our contractors before the job so they know what we want done).
As you can see, in this property we had to do a number of changes to get the master suite. We removed the old kitchen, and changed it into the new master bedroom, and made an old bedroom and bathroom to the left of the old kitchen into the master bathroom and walk in closet. Then, we turned the old dining room into the new kitchen and voila!- we end up with a 3 bedroom, two bathroom home that is exactly what a first time homebuyer is looking for - and it showed, because we had a contract to sell this home before the rehab was completed! We also put in new windows, new A/C, all new plumbing, new electrical, new vinyl siding, and all new paint and carpet. Check out a couple of the before and after pics below.
Living Room Before and After
Old Dining Room/New Kitchen Before and After
Another Old Dining Room/New Kitchen Before and After
Old Kitchen/New Master Bedroom Before and After
Another Old Kitchen/New Master Bedroom Before and After
Back Porch/Laundry Room Before and After
Well, I hope you guys liked the diagrams and the pics, as always, if you have any questions or comments you can leave them below, or email me at alexs@progresshomebuyers.com, or give me a call at 904-566-6400. Catch you later!
As you can see, in this property we had to do a number of changes to get the master suite. We removed the old kitchen, and changed it into the new master bedroom, and made an old bedroom and bathroom to the left of the old kitchen into the master bathroom and walk in closet. Then, we turned the old dining room into the new kitchen and voila!- we end up with a 3 bedroom, two bathroom home that is exactly what a first time homebuyer is looking for - and it showed, because we had a contract to sell this home before the rehab was completed! We also put in new windows, new A/C, all new plumbing, new electrical, new vinyl siding, and all new paint and carpet. Check out a couple of the before and after pics below.
Living Room Before and After
Old Dining Room/New Kitchen Before and After
Another Old Dining Room/New Kitchen Before and After
Old Kitchen/New Master Bedroom Before and After
Another Old Kitchen/New Master Bedroom Before and After
Back Porch/Laundry Room Before and After
Well, I hope you guys liked the diagrams and the pics, as always, if you have any questions or comments you can leave them below, or email me at alexs@progresshomebuyers.com, or give me a call at 904-566-6400. Catch you later!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The book of the week
Ready for anything
By: David Allen
This book was written after his first two books. Which are “Getting Things Done” and “Making It All Work”, I plan on doing book reports on both of these books in the future.
This book is full of systematic approaches for everyday life that will help open up the mind so it can be more creative, productive, stress free, and quick witted. One way that David described this was, “When you throw a pebble in a pond, what does the water do? It responds with total appropriateness to force and mass of the rock. It does nothing more and nothing less. It doesn’t overreact or under react.” He goes on to say that there are four major areas of productive behavior: completion, focus, structure, and action.
1. Getting ready for the unknown. He states that there will always be some unknown event that will throw a wrench into things, and to be ready for it. How? By getting some extra reading done when waiting on a meeting to start, or making some quick phone calls. The little things will add up.
2. Why getting organized usually doesn’t work. People try to do too much at once. People will collect, process, organize, review, and do all at once. David has a systemic way of putting together a “to do list.” First, ask is it actionable? Next what’s the outcome? Then what is the next action? Then organize all the results into appropriate categories. Now review all the option of what to do.
3. When the center is the edge. What he means by this is that people will try to get too organized or not enough. Be able to concentrate on what needs to get done, and then cooperating with yourself and others are the keys to getting around this.
4. Getting to where you’re going requires knowing where you are. “A map is not functional until you know where you are on it.” In order to set goals you must first know where you are at in life, and there are six questions to ask yourself in the book that will help you define it.
5. The danger of not as important projects. When making “to do lists” people will prioritize them and that will get them in trouble. Those projects on the bottom of the list will end up coming back and biting them in the butt. When making your to do list don’t prioritize use the system from number two.
6. If it’s on your mind, it’s probably not getting done. Keeping things in your head and telling yourself that you’ll do it later will probably not help. Writing things down will help you save energy and time. Trying to remember it later will waste time and energy that you don’t have.
7. Creativity shows up when there’s space. Mention earlier, getting everything out of your head by writing it down will help you think more clearly and creativity.
8. For more clarity, look from a higher place. The game of life doesn’t always stay the same. You could be working on something, toward a goal, and it just changes on you. The way to handle this is to reestablish what the goal is, and then decide what the next move is.
9. Putting something in front if your door at night so you remember to bring it with you the next day is a great strategy. Well, you can do the same thing with your mind. Because you don’t have to worry about other things if you have them all written down, you can focus on whatever it is that needs to be focused on.
10. The cleaner the purpose, the more ways to fulfill it. By knowing what outcome you want from something, makes it easier to finish. If we don’t know why we’re doing something our objectives lack meaning. Rehabs have a goal, and that’s to get finished so they can be sold or rented. There many more goals that come with a rehab like getting the money out to move on to the next deal. Defining the goal more will help to fulfill it easier.
11. Your system has to be better than your mind for your mind to let go. If you’re questioning the system then you still will waste time and energy on it. Your systems and lists also need to be updated every so offend.
The things that I learned in this book will take weeks to implement, and I will need to refer back to it many time I’m sure. I see this helping me at work and on personal goals. Right now the most important item that I got out of this was always having something to write ideas on. It’s something that we should all do.
By: David Allen
This book was written after his first two books. Which are “Getting Things Done” and “Making It All Work”, I plan on doing book reports on both of these books in the future.
This book is full of systematic approaches for everyday life that will help open up the mind so it can be more creative, productive, stress free, and quick witted. One way that David described this was, “When you throw a pebble in a pond, what does the water do? It responds with total appropriateness to force and mass of the rock. It does nothing more and nothing less. It doesn’t overreact or under react.” He goes on to say that there are four major areas of productive behavior: completion, focus, structure, and action.
1. Getting ready for the unknown. He states that there will always be some unknown event that will throw a wrench into things, and to be ready for it. How? By getting some extra reading done when waiting on a meeting to start, or making some quick phone calls. The little things will add up.
2. Why getting organized usually doesn’t work. People try to do too much at once. People will collect, process, organize, review, and do all at once. David has a systemic way of putting together a “to do list.” First, ask is it actionable? Next what’s the outcome? Then what is the next action? Then organize all the results into appropriate categories. Now review all the option of what to do.
3. When the center is the edge. What he means by this is that people will try to get too organized or not enough. Be able to concentrate on what needs to get done, and then cooperating with yourself and others are the keys to getting around this.
4. Getting to where you’re going requires knowing where you are. “A map is not functional until you know where you are on it.” In order to set goals you must first know where you are at in life, and there are six questions to ask yourself in the book that will help you define it.
5. The danger of not as important projects. When making “to do lists” people will prioritize them and that will get them in trouble. Those projects on the bottom of the list will end up coming back and biting them in the butt. When making your to do list don’t prioritize use the system from number two.
6. If it’s on your mind, it’s probably not getting done. Keeping things in your head and telling yourself that you’ll do it later will probably not help. Writing things down will help you save energy and time. Trying to remember it later will waste time and energy that you don’t have.
7. Creativity shows up when there’s space. Mention earlier, getting everything out of your head by writing it down will help you think more clearly and creativity.
8. For more clarity, look from a higher place. The game of life doesn’t always stay the same. You could be working on something, toward a goal, and it just changes on you. The way to handle this is to reestablish what the goal is, and then decide what the next move is.
9. Putting something in front if your door at night so you remember to bring it with you the next day is a great strategy. Well, you can do the same thing with your mind. Because you don’t have to worry about other things if you have them all written down, you can focus on whatever it is that needs to be focused on.
10. The cleaner the purpose, the more ways to fulfill it. By knowing what outcome you want from something, makes it easier to finish. If we don’t know why we’re doing something our objectives lack meaning. Rehabs have a goal, and that’s to get finished so they can be sold or rented. There many more goals that come with a rehab like getting the money out to move on to the next deal. Defining the goal more will help to fulfill it easier.
11. Your system has to be better than your mind for your mind to let go. If you’re questioning the system then you still will waste time and energy on it. Your systems and lists also need to be updated every so offend.
The things that I learned in this book will take weeks to implement, and I will need to refer back to it many time I’m sure. I see this helping me at work and on personal goals. Right now the most important item that I got out of this was always having something to write ideas on. It’s something that we should all do.
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