I spent most of last week on the road in Indiana. It was similar to my trip to North Carolina in August where I was checking out properties. The trip went fast and I did a lot of driving around, but I was able to accomplish quite a bit. There were 4 main things I wanted to do while I was there:
1) Make sure REO properties are on track
I don’t know why, but it seems like if I have to take a property back it tends to be in Indiana. I met with my local teams in Fort Wayne and Muncie where I have REOs, and also visited a property in Evansille that might be an REO in a couple of months.
2) Find new deals
Like my North Carolina trip I was able to drive by assets for sale. I already have a bid accepted on one of them and hope to close on it soon.
3) Build local teams
While note investing can be done remotely, I think there is value in getting out and meeting your teams face to face at least once. I’m playing a long game and plan to be in the business for many years. Building these relationships should pay dividends over time. Right now I feel like I have really solid teams in place in Fort Wayne, Muncie and Evansville.
4) Scout areas / towns
I spend a lot of time looking up statistics and crime data on the areas I invest in. But nothing beats getting on the ground and seeing for yourself what a town or neighborhood is like. This applies especially to the smaller and medium sized towns. On this trip there was one town in particular I thought was a kind of a dump, and one that was much nicer than I expected.
I flew into Indianapolis and then did a lot of driving, but it was well worth it. Fort Wayne and Evansville are really far apart…… I had long flight delays both going there and coming back. I got to my hotel in Indianapolis at 2am on Tuesday morning, and then got home to Denver at about 1am on Friday. I think the airline wanted to give me back the couple hours I lost at the beginning of the trip….. I’ll have a more in depth trip report on my podcast in a couple of weeks.
Note Investor Podcast Episode 6 with Jason Bible
This week I had Mr Texas Real Estate Jason Bible on the podcast. We covered a wide range of real estate topics. One of the things I enjoy about doing the podcast is getting to learn from the guests. One of the topics we discussed that was eye opening for me were the advantages of disadvantages of doing Airbnbs. You can listen to the episode on iTunes here or watch it on YouTube: