October 2014's IC Meeting

Wednesday was October's Investors Club meeting. My phone reminded me there was a meeting, and I was in the middle of playing Civilizations 5. I had to make a choice between playing a game that's loosely based on property management, or going to a meeting that focused on real life property management. Had I known what they were gonna talk about and how the meeting was gonna go, I would have definitely stayed my ass at home and continued my war with Poland.

I got there late and the same guy Joe who tried to sell me his piece of garbage 5 unit property in August's meeting was there. He sat next to me and began showing me properties he has on his list. Another guy, Patrick Boston, was also at the meeting. He was the guy that told me over the phone that I won't be able to find financing when I was trying to buy Property 3. Two jerks. Anyway, the meeting began and we had a guy from a finance company communicate with us through Skype. He has a program that helps investors buy get 5 properties with a blanket loan. He tried to explain everything, but he was using terms that hardly anyone understood, including the president of the club herself. To make matters worse, his connection was bad so he had to repeat himself multiple times. I focused on some of the terms he used that I found interesting like “loan to cost” and “interest-only lending”. I'll do my research on them and see how I can apply them to future purchases.

Once the Skype seminar was done, the president really didn't have much to talk about. She spoke about how her nephew or son or whatever passed away last month, and that really ticked me off. I didn't pay $10 to hear someone mope about her dead relative. Then came some final thoughts from various people:

• Be honest with my taxes. The more profit I show on my properties, the more willing a bank will be to lend me money and trust that I know what I'm doing. I learned this the hard way years ago.

• There's a new code enforcement rule in Smalltown which states that all rental units must now have smoke detectors AND CO detectors in each room. Hmm. I'll care about that when I start caring about code.

• Near the end of the meeting, a man came in and asked for help in renovating a property he bought in the heart of the ghetto. The look on his face was like... it was like he had just been through a war. He talked slow and had a very “beaten down” posture about him. I shook my head when I saw him, and I'll use him as further proof that buying in bad areas for the cheap prices are simply not worth it. I bet that, when he purchased the property, he was all excited about his plans for it. Look at him now...

• Before everyone left, a woman talked about something called the Cashflow Game. It's supposed to be a game that helps one understand their portfolio and basics concepts in investing, created by the "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" guy Robert Kiyosaki. I'm very interested in playing this game, as I've always wanted to play a more realistically detailed version of Monopoly. The mobile app version of Cashflow game sucks thanks to the tiny font, so I'll try to get the one for the computer before I go to sleep tonight.

Overall, the meeting wasn't great at all. I ended up spending $27 bucks ($10 for Member Dues, $17 for turkey club sandwich plus tip). If I go to next month's meeting, I'll make sure to eat food at home beforehand.

P.S.: The blacks were there again, and I felt that they were trying to talk to me or get my attention. I found out that one of them owns a funding company, so I probably should have talked to him. But I'm still not ready to talk to anyone new at these meetings, so I ignored them and everyone else. Eventually I'll have to stop this. If I'm gonna make the most of these meetings, I have to at least pretend to be approachable. All it takes is one meeting with someone who can offer me a great deal, and it'd all be worth it. Baby steps...