Ending 30 Year Ban — Never Say Never — The Lani & Benn Show — Ditchin’ Weight
Posted @ 12:17 am - Filed under Real Estate Investing, Purposeful Planning, Check This Out, Retirement, Inner Circle, Dallas
My first experience with investment property in Texas came in the ’70’s. Fortunately it wasn’t us, but many pros I knew came back with stories, which if made into movies, would’ve been rated R for financial violence. 
It repeated itself over and over. Seasoned pros coming back from somewhere in Texas with their tails between their legs, telling their tales of woe.
I made a pact with myself — Texas now had an imaginary fence around it, as far as investment goes — and that meant my clients also. No Texas properties. Too risky.
Things just seemed to happen there without much rhyme or reason. Add to that the mystery of why all those veterans came back scarred, and what you get is a So Cal Scaredy Cat. 
Why leave San Diego anyway? All our market ever did was go up, go up some more, pause, and go up again. Over and over and over…
As you’ve read here many times, I’m not a promoter of San Diego income property. It’s a bad investment today, and will only be worse tomorrow. Of course, that’s my way of explaining why Brown & Brown only sells San Diego income property for investors and not to investors. San Diego isn’t the only member of this club by any stretch. I believe, for instance, Las Vegas is now and forever a poor investment destination. Though I will admit they have some exceptions there — just not small income units. How ’bout most of Northern CA while we’re at it? Anyone for a million dollar duplex?
Dead silence ensues.
Josh and I leave for Texas (Dallas) this morning. Yep, the ban is almost officially at an end. Seems Grandma was right — try to avoid saying never and always.
Inner Circle members will be pleased with what we bring back from Texas.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…after we’re finished with the Dallas business, we’re off to Austin to meet the leaders of the Genius clan. Benn and Lani are an unbeatable husband/wife duo who have successfully double-teamed the entire real estate industry this year. Benn is a broker, while Lani, unlicensed by design, takes care of all the marketing.
I liked Lani from the first because she’s an obvious 
graduate of the Attila the Hun school of gettin’ stuff done.
Benn is president of the Real Estate Techno-Nerds — Austin Chapter. His plan is to conquer the Austin real estate market one idea at a time. So far, so good, from my vantage point. I’d sure like to be part of that. (Yea, I know. But that’s what passes for BawldGuy subtlety.)
Can’t wait to meet the Dallas guys — and just know it’s gonna take a week for Thursday to get here, so we can get together with Benn and Lani. Good times.
The weight thing
About a month ago I wrote about losing weight, and investing in real estate. As you would expect, The Purposeful Plan was invoked shamelessly. An update was promised, and this is as good a time as any.
Started out the last couple days of July tippin’ the scales at 195. That ain’t necessarily bad — unless you’re only 5′ 9″. Of course, with a waistline expanded to 41″ and two more chins than I was born with, 195 
pounds wasn’t, ah, working for me.
It’s now been a total of 65 days. Today the scales smiled for me — 165.8 pounds. The waist that ate San Diego? Almost gone — 33½”.
The Plan was thoroughly thought out, and executed with fairly decent discipline. (I gotta say that, right?) It’s been WAY easier than I’d anticipated. But then, that’s the way it is for many real estate investors.
Hold on, Segue coming.
With clearly defined goals — a sense of reality about the current status quo — and a Purposeful Plan — your retirement goals can be achieved. In fact, most of the time they can become reality more quickly than you imagined.
Take some time to sit down and take the first step towards the cool drink with the little umbrella, on the beach…far, far away.
Establish what your current financial status is. Be brutally honest. Don’t skew the picture so badly you turn it into a Sesame Street episode — written by Stephen King. If you can answer an outsider’s questions easily, you’ve probably done a pretty good job.
Before you begin, if you’re married, you and your spouse should write down on separate pieces of paper, what you think your current net worth is. Winner gets to choose what movie you watch Saturday night. Don’t know about you guys, but if winning means I don’t have to watch Beaches — I’m in.
Talk to you later.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 12:17 am and is filed under Real Estate Investing, Purposeful Planning, Check This Out, Retirement, Inner Circle, Dallas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.