Striving to create a better life for everyone by sustainably solving real estate problems

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Monthly Archives: May 2017

Office Life

Come on in our cozy kitchen and have a coffee with me!

What has happened since I have become part of the team? Well a whole bunch! The office was pretty vacant when I started. Lots of empty space and shelves, no computer equipment, and placebo phone. Now empty shelves are adorned with whatever little trinket or collectible I happen to fancy, a few framed documents, a few awards for Lee, file boxes, kid pictures, and even a book or two. There is even a picture that one of my kids drew on the fridge. You could walk into our kitchen and prepare a meal, have a cup of coffee at our table and visit with any of us in there. My empty desk is now full to the brim with electronics, papers, and other office supplies including my one of a kind and very awesome tape dispenser! Plants have arrived! Decorations have been added! A sign befitting a growing and thriving business is in our front yard! Our office has come to life!

 

Welcome to home! You’re welcome to have a seat on the futon, but BEWARE!! It is a nap trap!!

Notice I do not say “The office” or “Lee’s office” but I refer to it as “Ours'” or “Mine,” because I feel personally invested. I really feel the core values of this office. I have heard many businesses claim to be family first, but rarely have I seen them prove that value. With the Hermits, they prove that everyday. Sometimes on weekends when I have a brilliant idea (I don’t often have non brilliant ideas, but I digress), I run in to the office and put my ideas on paper. This idea today just happens to be how to help people who have a house owner financed through us and happen to have a financial crisis, get back on track and keep their house. It is our mission to do the most good. So how do we help? Well, I am working on that. I personally think it is a great idea, and I will know soon if it actually is or not.

 

My desk. Once it was just an empty surface and now it buzzes with daily work and projects to do the most good for our clients. It is how I leave my mark on the world.

 

So, the office has come to life since I have been here. Brilliant ideas have been put on paper, but what about me? Have the Hermits changed me? The answer is no. I have not changed in my core values, but rather found a place for them to grow and thrive! With every accomplishment and every encouraging word from Lee and Sue Ann, I find myself in a bigger state of growth for the next project. I truly feel valued and part of the team. When I make a mistake, it is just part of learning. Mistakes mean you’re trying, and that is the attitude here. I have so much room to grow here, and I feel like I have been planted and am beginning to take root.

 

My two youngest children who are 10 and 7. This moment brought to you by the fantastic morale of this wonderful office.

 

Sometimes on the weekends I end up doing things like blogging and putting ideas on paper and I have any number of my four sons with me. It gets a little loud at times, and we have to establish not to go into Mr. Lee or Mr. Larry’s office, but they get it. If you want honesty, ask a child. As the saying goes, two things that never lie are tights and kids. My kids like to explore the office, lounge on the new futon, and play just like they are at home. We have managed to turn this office into a home! This is the home office of the Hermits, and we really feel at home. Give us the chance to make your home as well. My kids love the comfort of the office, I love it too. If we can do that here, then we can surely do it for you!

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People We Work With: Bankers

To be honest, until we started this business, I didn’t know any “bankers,” really. I had worked with bank staff to set up accounts, get my 401Ks going, and a few things like that, but I never had any personal relationships with people in the banking business. I rarely saw the same people twice in the banks I went to, which were branches of very large banks.

Celebrating a closing with Thomas in Georgetown.

However, once we started buying and selling properties more than once or twice a year, it became clear to us that getting standard loans from faceless institutions wasn’t cutting it. For one thing, it took a long time, and for another, traditional financing can be problematic for people who buy, renovate and sell houses with problems.

So, Lee began to think, and it occurred to him that the staff at small banks might well be more interested in our business model and in working with us, so he began to chat with folks at smaller banks in our area. He asked people he met who they had worked with, went to networking meetings where bank representatives who were familiar with what we do made presentations, and made a lot of phone calls. Thanks to all of that, we now have options for financing purchases, rehabs, and other transactions. More important, we have personal relationships with bank officers who know who we are and what we do. They are happy to work with us, because we know we are honest, make all our payments, and bring in business to the banks.

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We Have a Roadrunner!

A large tenant-occupied house.

You’re gonna be a beautiful birdie, Roadrunner!

Wow, we have had so many closings lately that we forgot to share one!

May 11 was another one of those days we just love: when we close on another house and can get going with the renovation! This time it’s our Roadrunner house in Bryan, Texas. Lee headed over there, and closed in just a half hour.

Since we got the house under contract, we’ve gotten lots of estimates and ideas for fixing it up, and we even got to meet the guy we’re buying it from. We were happy to learn that we’ve helped him out of a complicated situation–he just couldn’t supervise the remodel from far away, and saw that we are quite capable of doing so. We appreciate his confidence!

We also thank our real estate friend, Judy Todd, who represented the seller in this transaction and alerted us to the house. We probably owe HER chanpagne now.

So, we are off and running. The thing that is exciting about this one is that we are in a nice neighborhood, so our goal is to make the house fit in with the rest of its neighbors. Out team is chomping at the bit! Lee will be the project manager on this one, and he is getting bids from contractors. Let’s go!

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We’re Getting Somewhere!

back

The back of the house, sporting a distinct lack of rotten wood, and a porch that is not falling in.

Just a few days ago I shared some photos of a little white house in Cameron, Texas that we were about to start a renovation on. I called the post You Have to Start Somewhere. It was a sad little place, with peeling paint, rotten wood, scary paneling, and all the usual stuff you see in an old house that had been a rental unit for years.

Well, just take a look at her now! Work started on the renovation right after I took the photos, and the Ricky Mora’s guys have been working hard every day since then. They have a different style of work than some of the other teams we use. Instead of a couple of guys doing things over a month or more, they bring in LOTS of people all at once, and get the work done in a couple of weeks. The quality is good, so we are not complaining!

These photos were taken a week apart!

I’ll include a gallery with lots of photos below. I made a collage of the same angle before and “during” renovation. It looks better already. When it’s done and the porch is all screened in, there will be one to compare with the “before” picture, though! You can see all the trucks in the video walk-through we posted to Facebook (it’s at the bottom of this post).

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Meadow Arbor Nears Completion

Painters are a-painting!

Not all our news is bad! We are keeping updated on the Meadow Arbor project, and our project manager (and contractor), Frank, reports that the exterior painting is almost done (there were a few rain delays, but we can’t complain about rain). The house looks very nice.

Inside, he was painting the very tall chimney and taking care of a few extra details. We look forward to photos of the finished interior soon, and to putting this one on the market in a week or two.

The best news, though, is we plan to make an offer on the house right across the street, so Frank can move straight on to another project and use the same vendors and sources he found for the first Meadow Arbor. It pays to network with the neighbors, which is exactly what he did! We strongly believe in making friends with the folks around the houses we work on, just for these reasons.

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