Struggling Investor Blog

I don’t have anything new to post about except that I am back from my shore vacation in Wildwood Crest, NJ. It was fun, had the whole family down there with us which is always nice, 10 people in all. We all get together very well so there is never any drama. I’ll post some pictures when we get them uploaded. My goal for this week is to go to a new REI group meeting on Wednesday and also create …

I managed to get my website up and running (weBuyNjProperty.com) but I have no content on it yet, that will be for next week and the week after to do. The whole process of registering the new domains, signing up for the hosting service and then pointing the domains to the new hosting service is never “straight” forward, but was much easier then I remember. The killer is that since it always takes some time for the internet to propagate …

I took one step forward yesterday and bought a couple domain names so I can create my investor website. I purchased them from GoDaddy and found a coupon code (OYH3) to knock the price down to $6.95 per domain. It took me a few days to figure out some decent word combinations to get a domain name I liked. Well tell me what you think… sjCostello.com iBuyMorrisCountyHomes.com iBuyNJProperty.com webuynjhouses.com I like’m, and I came up with a few others as …

Yesterday I found the site for New Jersey that published the Public Notices and also the county clerks office as well as another site that will be help full… Public Notices Document Searches Morris County Clerks Office I played around with the sites and find a lot of Foreclosures and Notice of Defaults. Not sure how to tell the difference between the two yet but I’ll figure it out. I’d like to be able to produce my own leads by …

Well, I could possibly have played my last baseball game. We won our first round playoff game 2-1. I pitched and managed to throw 9 innings and give up 5 hits and 2 walks. Not to bad, the game flew by though. Next week I’ll be on vacation in Wildwood Crest, NJ for my family’s annual summer trip so I’ll miss the semifinal game. I’ve also got to buy my wife a birthday present, her bday is on the 18th …

Just a post i read over at reiclub that is good information about negotiating a deal. There is an old saying “You don’t make your money when you sell the home, you make your money when you buy”. From my experience that statement is about 50% true. Your ability to negotiate can end up playing a huge role in how much money you will make on a deal. Learning how to negotiate with sellers and buyers will be one of …

I discovered Google Reader today, which is great for keeping track of all your RSS feeds (Blogs and news sites). So spent the morning messing around with that, it’s great and will allow me to read all my blogs in one spot. I also messed around with twitter for a little bit, looks promising but I just have to figure out how to effectively use it to help me network. That’s about all I did today, so I’ll leave you …

I came across this today and wanted to share. It is about how housing and the economy are intertwined and what is actually happening now that is causing the housing bubble to burst. If you are interested in real estate investing this is a must read. Bursting Bubble

I finished my first revision of my Business Plan yesterday. There are some parts I’m not sure of, for instance do I write it if I was a company? I used Costello Home Buyers. Or should I write it in the first person? If anyone out there can lend me some advice that would be great! I will say it does really make you think about what you are getting yourself into. To write a complete business plan you have …

I usually have baseball games from noon to 5 on sunday (I pitch), but yesterday the games were canceled. I found this out Saturday night so I was like cool I can spend some time with my wife before she goes to work, which I did. As usual on Sundays I went to my mom’s house for dinner and she asked me if I had gone to any open houses today because she noticed a lot of them. DOH!! I …

Lack of motivation is one of the hardest things in life to overcome for me and I’m sure a lot of other people. I constantly struggle with getting myself to do things from taking out the garbage to exercising. Hell sometimes I will put a glass in the sink instead of taking that ONE extra step to put it into the dishwasher!?!? Why is that? I wish I had an answer. What I have learned in my 31 years is …

I’ve continue to work on my business plan and here is the next part that I’ve gotten to II. Market Analysis Summary Costello Home Buyers invests in distressed residential real estate. The main target areas will be those areas that are in high demand by first time home buyers in the Morris County area. These areas are Morristown and Morris Plains to name a few. They have stable resale values yet provide sufficient amount of opportunity. Once the target property …

If anyone has any suggestions I’d be thankful! A. Company Information Costello Home Buyers was formed in July 2008 to benefit from distressed property owners in the Morris County. We are a company that specializes in purchasing properties from motivated sellers in order to wholesale them to rehab investors and landlords. Costello Home Buyers is owned and managed by Scott Costello. B. Management Information Scott Costello has little to no experience in real estate investing but has spent countless hours …

In my effort to keep my family’s money (the money made by myself and my wife at our JOB) free from any investing I’ll be doing, I took on some part time work. I’ll be doing some CAD work for his fire protection company. It basically requires me to draw the floor plans and show where all the extinguishers, stairs, emergency areas, etc… will be. I had never used AutoCad for much of anything, so it’s going to be a …

Jared from FlitItBig asked me a good question in his comment to a previous post. He asked “What area are you looking to invest? Buy and hold? Wholesale? Rehab and flip?” This is a very important question to answer before I get started, I mean how can you write an effective business plan if you don’t know your exit strategy right? My focus will be on wholesaling. From my research this is a good entry point into the real estate …