OfflineHi everyone! 
We decided to start a journal, even though we weren't planning on it until we had our first deal!! Since it's taking a LITTLE longer than we had hoped for that to happen, here we are!
We joined the Success Academy January 20, 2009 and have been actively taking the classes, doing the Action Items and WORKING the program every single day since. We are highly motivated to be successful so that we can make a better life for our family and realize our dream of relocating to Eastern Washington.
We have found that Real Estate Investing has many highs and lows, emotionally speaking. And although we have had many setbacks and roadblocks, we are committed and we are NOT quitting -- EVER!! 
We had some problems with our first realtor & had to fire her and find a new agent that has a backbone and can defend our low offers. We used Matt's letter and posted it on Craigslist & within a day had 5 realtors who were EXCITED to work with us. It was GREAT!! It took us a while to interview them and to chose the right agent for us, but we are now working with a great realtor who is not afraid to put in 10-20 offers per week at 40-50% FMV.
We are currently in negotiations with a bank on the 5th offer we submitted on an REO in a very nice neighborhood. We were THRILLED to just get a counter!! (Most of the offers we have put in have been flat-out rejected, but we don't let it get us down!!) But we aren't putting all our hopes on that property! We currently have 21 offers out there and we have a standing appointment with our realtor to submit 10-20 offers each week. Hopefully Matt's 25:1 method will work for us, too, and we can start realizing our dreams! Until then, we will keep working and putting in those offers!!
Thanks for reading!!
Dominic and Kim
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. -- Henry David Thoreau
Hi guys,
Have you heard anything on your contract? We put in our first "real" offer last week and are still waiting to hear back so we have been following you guys for some encouragement and just wanted to check in to see what the status was!
We are keeping our fingers crossed for you! Once you get that first deal, you will be on your way........
Rhamel and Niki
Thank you so much for the encouragement! We haven't heard one way or another on our offer. In fact, the listing agent called our realtor today and asked that we please be patient, as this bank is NOTORIOUSLY slow to respond. He said that even HE is frustrated with them. So we have agreed to just let that offer sit and see what happens with it.
In the meantime, we are putting in another 11 offers today. It's strange, each week I find 20 properties I want to offer on, and lately almost half of them are already pending. Things really seem to be picking up here, which I guess is typical for this time of year. I guess I need to find 40 properties each week, instead!!!
Congratulations on putting in your first offer!! Let us know what kind of response you get!! It will be so great when we all have our first deals under our belts.
I posted this as a thread elsewhere, but wanted to update our journal, too!
We are sooooo excited tonight! We just learned that the offer we have been in negotiations over for the last 2 weeks has been accepted!
The Fair Market Value is $180,000 and we got it under contract for $97,000. We have already advertised it out to all our buyers and we are asking for a $3500 Assignment Fee. We also posted an ad on CL so that we can get the word out to as many buyers as possible, plus we may be able to build up our buyers list at the same time.
This offer has been an exercise in patience, something we are in short supply of! Our original offer was $90K to their asking price of $150K. At the time, they accepted another offer. Then about 3 weeks later, they called to ask if we were still interested, as the offer fell through. We said that we were, and a few days later, they countered at $135K. We then re-countered at $92K, with a deadline of 5 days.
The deadline was a MISTAKE! They changed their MLS listing to say, "Only taking offers until Wednesday! Another offer on the table." Our realtor said she couldn't believe the amount of interest that stirred in the property. Sure enough, another offer came in to compete with us. The listing agent said the offer was $97K, but contingent on financing and that they would rather take our cash offer. Would we be willing to come up $5000? We agreed, but said we wanted to hear by Friday (that gave them 2 days).
They completely ignored our deadline!! Friday came and went and NO WORD! We were so frustrated by this point that we decided to pull the offer, but our realtor said that she had worked with this bank before and they are notoriously slow. She recommended that we be patient and wait it out, because if we pulled our offer they might lower the asking price, thus generating more competition. We took her advice.
Then, this morning the listing agent called our realtor to ask us to continue being patient, and that HE was frustrated with the bank, too! At this point, we weren't holding our breath!!
Then, tonight at 4:30 we got word that our offer was accepted!! We now have a 10 day inspection period to get it assigned. WOW!!!
Let's just pray that we don't blow it NOW!! Thank you everyone for your support and words of encouragement!! We will keep you all updated!
Dominic and Kim
WHAHOOOOO!!! We are sitting here reading the threads from today and just saw this one! See, all that hard work does pay off!
You will get it reassigned in no time. Try www.backpage.com too. We seem to have really good luck with our ads there. The market has really picked up in AZ also! I think we are in a very similar market as you are. We can't wait to hear how the inspection goes and when you get the assignment, so keep us posted!! 
Congratulations again, you have tackled the biggest obstacle so far, everything else is down hill from here!!
Niki
Thanks for the info on backpage.com -- I haven't tried that one yet!
We are so excited!! I think we had really written that property off in our minds since the bank was being so slow.
Three of our buyers already responded to our email, one was going to look at it tonight and two are going in the morning. I hope they don't run into each other!!!
You are so sweet to be excited for us! We'll keep you updated. Keep your fingers crossed for us that we can assign it within the next 10 days!!
Any word on your offer??
The bank is taking their sweet little time on this one!
It was on the market for 1 day at 40% of FMV which is a smokn' deal for this area, so there were 3 other offers that came in when ours did so they sent out a multiple counter for the highest and best offer so we countered back at full price and they still have not made a decision. This was on Monday and we gave them until tomorrow so we will see what happens! We put in another offer today on a property in probate that came back on the market. The seller (daughter of deceased owner) is very motivated so we are praying she will just accept the offer so she can move forward. The power of positive thinking, right?? 
Hopefully we will all have good news by the end of next week!
Good luck!
Sorry, I haven't come to this thread in a while! Niki, have you heard anything back on your offer?
I've been writing on another thread about this deal we're working on, but I thought I'd update our journal, too. We have signed the Assignment Agreement with our buyer and we have informed the bank that we have assigned the contract. They have his name and his proof of funds (a bank statement that shows over half a million dollars, as opposed to our Coastal letter!!
), so we are waiting to see if they will accept the assignment. Fingers are crossed. I won't be surprised if they wait until our 10-day inspection period is over before addressing us. That seems to be the M.O. of this bank. We are considering having our realtor call the Listing Agent and let him know that our buyer has already inspected the property and is ready to pay cash for the house today. It is the truth, and it may help if the bank is worried that our buyer will use the inspection addendum to get out of the contract.
In other news, our realtor wrote up an awesome cover letter to submit with each of our offers. It seems to have worked, as she didn't receive any angry phone calls this week, and we got 2 counter-offers!! We are pushing forward and submitting offers every week in anticipation of that FIRST DEAL!! (And many more to come, too!!)
the cover letter say? My realtor and I have had it with listing agents! One of them today emailed her and said that the bank would only be accepting full price offers. I am so frustrated with listing agents. Congratulations on you finalizing the deal.
KimmyJ
Hi Kim. Well, we haven't finalized the deal, yet! It's all up to the bank now and we know how THEY are!!
The cover letter essentially says the following:
"Please consider this offer a serious one. I realize the offer price is significantly below asking price, but it is not intended to be offensive. The buyer is a serious, long-term investor who intends to improve the property and flip it for a profit. Therefore, he must obtain the property at a certain price point. I would appreciate it if you would consider this offer seriously and submit a response in writing in order for me to communicate your response to the buyer. Thank you, Mrs.Realtor"
Up until now, every week she would get angry phone calls and listing agents calling to tell her that they wouldn't even submit this offensively low offer. We never heard ANYTHING back on any of our offers, other than this type of anger!! NOBODY was taking us seriously. Then, last week she attached the cover letter, and out of the 10 offers we submitted, we have already gotten 2 counters. And she said she didn't get a single angry phone call. So we will see if it really makes a difference. I thought it was a great idea.
Any word on your duplex??
No go on the duplex. The listing agent sat on my paperwork for 4 days and then emailed me at 9:30 at night to tell me that he had another offer. I was livid and told him that it was unprofessional and unethical what he did. I also told him that he lost BIG because my goal is to purchase 100 properties over the next 18 months and because of his greediness, he lost out on massive income. He could of cared less, but it made me feel better.
KimmyJ