Paul Meyer Buys Houses

horrible stock trader

mobile home park repairs, new manager – non-farm payroll report

My new manager for my mobile home park #1 has been a life saver. He is on his game, at least seems honest, and will not put up with bad tenants. If we can get the park fully rented again I will at least break even in the mean time until I can buy more trailers to fill the empty lots available to rent. I am in another deal to buy an 18 lot park, with 18 park owned trailers, all fully rented, for $190k. You might ask why am I buying another park if my first park has gone to shit and I’m not profiting yet? Well I’m pretty ambitious so I don’t let one park bring me down. It will work. I believe in it, the people helping me, and fixing it up to rent fully. So far I have bought a park that is known as the worst/drug heavy spot outside of town. How’s that to know you are a park owner of scum? Hmm…I guess it could be worst. I was once a young man that would run away from this type of situation, now I’m going to go head on and fix it so I will suceed. If I want to be powerful and successful I need to learn how to fix problems. This is definitely a problem and with a $80k mortgage I definitely need to fix it. I will blog more as more trailers are rented out with more progress.

As for stocks. I steadily keep losing my money. It is simply amazing how well I can lose money. I’m not saying I’ve always lost money, but recently since August 2007 I’ve made some big loss trades. I should be making BIG gains, but for some reason I’m not making the right decisions. Granted, I don’t have time to watch the market all day, buy and sell when I want, but I had plenty of opportunities to make a profit and get out without losing the bulk of my money. Now that my down payment I was using to create more money for a deal is down I’m going to have to work and think triple hard to bring my trading money up to where it was before basically $40,000. Currently at $3000 (minus the $6000 that really doesn’t count because its my down payment, well was $10000 I should say).

I admit my ambitious move to put $10k into a trade to earn $20k probably wasn’t the smartest move, but a 50% chance is pretty good I think. Now that the $10k is $6k I’ll have to work it extra hard. I’m already -$8k down for the entire year. Not one withdrawed profit yet. My $40k profit should of been taken out immediately to put into real estate. Dumb me. Well I guess I learn repeatedly the hard way as usual. If I was married and she know would it make it any different? Would she convience my thoughts otherwise not to re-trade the big profit? Probably.

I plan on trading SHLD in the retail season. SHLD has broken its major downtrend and a lot of positive buzz has been on the stock from a billionaire buying up 5% of the stock just recently.
Currently at $151 and a high of $170s I think or should I say by the facts and charts right now seems like a great time to get in. AAPL @161 just moved up finally of course (taking forever).
AAPL might be the better stock going to $200? Whatever I trade it has to move up or I need to sell my options. The time value of Calls slow the price movement up if the stock stays flat and falls. This I have learned. The recent non-farm payroll report boosted stocks HIGH. I should of NOT bought Put options knowing that there was a “rumor” that the payroll report was going to be higher then expected which is bullish. Again, dumb me. Hard learning.

As for the ladies. I took one charming lady interested in the finance field out to lunch. Haven’t heard back from her – going to send her some small flowers. Will this get me any attention? noticeable? probably unlikely, but it is worth the try.

later -fn


HOKU, new recent real estate, and juggling college classes

Currently in the world of the finance ninja he has purchased his second real estate deal. The property is an RV/Trailor park in Tennessee. He has also enrolled in 3 online college classes getting closer to finish his BA, and his stocks holdings have still not changed -$21,000.

Why not talk in the third person?

About 2 weeks ago I believe I purchased HOKU JAN 2008 17.5 CALL options. I should of actually put a GTC up 100%, but of course I didn’t. Currently I’m up around 50%. I feel the stock has much more room to grow and I bought tons of time so I could receive a larger return.
Although HOKU is doing well I only had $1000 to invest so due to my negative -$21000 balance on the stocks owned my networth is still very unhappy with my bad decisions during the new year of 2007 trading.

As for my real estate developments I already know what you are thinking. How can I be purchasing real estate with no money left and who would want to buy a trailor park? Well, I went to a real estate game club that plays Rich Dad Poor Dad’s Cashflow and they sell real estate university packages with a website and company that prepares real estate deals for you. I didn’t buy into it, but for a bran new person it might be a great idea. Personally buying real estate isn’t that hard expecially when you are paying all the closing costs for other people to do everything for you. I actually have been looking on ebay.com real estate listing and loopnet.com listings. They offer a site called investorconcierge.com where you have to pay $3000 just to see the listings. Honestly I think that is crazy because there are already millions of listings available you can do advanced searches on to find bargains to start a real estate portfolio. Also to have full access to the site and first picks on the properties that aren’t any better then any others you have to end up paying around $21,000. Now if you want to do that great, but I’d rather take $21,000 and buy a properties or properties with that money instead of waste it on a 40 CD audio/video course I’m never going to take the time to watch because I’m spending 100% of my time on the internet searching properties and talking to professionals about buying them. Setting up deals isn’t hard. If you can do math then you can figure out if the property you are looking at will make you money. Speaking of properties the RV/Trailor park I bought in Tennessee, a state I’ve only driven through going to California, I found off ebay.com. I usually try to avoid ebay, but most people selling properties there usually have no luck selling in town possibly because its too small with no buyers interested or there to flip a properties quickly for a resale for a quick gain, but the property might be still very underpriced for its value. This RV/trailor park came across as an awesome deal if all things work out of course. It has 1.5 acres of land off a main highway near town. It has 10 units with 6 currently being rented. The owner owned all 6 units which were included in the property of sale. Each unit rents for an average of $450/month. Doing some quick math that is $2700/month income. The owner was selling the full park for $90,000 and offered owner financing at 10% if he got the full $90,000 with a mortgage note of $700/month. The owner/landlord pays all utilities of water, sewage, electricity, and cable of around $600/month.
So the net profit off this property with only 6 units rented is $1400/month or $18,850/year because he rents them weekly not monthly so that is an extra 4 weeks of rent (before property management fee of 10% net will be $1100/month). This is more than a seamn or E-3 makes in the USCG or Navy. His auction was up for a little less than 15 days I believe more than enough time for other investors to catch their eye. I’m surprised no one bought it sooner then I did. I basically just did some research on the town, talked to the owner, and found a property manager to take over the property for me since I will be an absent owner. All the seller wanted was at least $10,000 down which was reasonable and my student loans I took out for college and investing since that is my main independent study came to use finally. Anyone can take out a $40,000 student loan from any major lender. It isn’t very hard and you can use them for many things as long as you are a full-time student. I plan to use the remaining amount for a 3rd property and the rest two buy 4 more trailors for the park. That’s right. Four more trailors only renting at $400/month each would increase my cashflow to $4300 with a net of over $2700/month. Most likely my utilities would go up some, but not likely to double. As for why would the owner sell it for so cheap? I asked him. His answer was reasonable. He said he bought it 3 years earlier and it was a dump and dead. He put 6 old cheap trailors on them and fixed them up and now looking to sell it to go onto another deal. I figure he must of not put more than $30,000 into the 6 trailors and the piece of land. So selling it for $90,000 3 years later is an awesome deal for him and myself since the park produces a very good income. I plan to pay off the remaining $80,000 I owe him on a note sooner to increase my cashflow another $700 which would make it around $2100 with only 6 units occupied. I’m pretty psyched about the deal and my property manager seems very sharp and willing to do a good job. The property manager will earn 10% of all rental income so he wants to help me get those other spots filled increasing his cashflow. I will collect my first rent next week around July 11th.
I plan to build it up, buy more trailors to rent, and pay off the note within 2-5 years.

I enrolled in 3 college online classes in HPU. I expect to get underway soon and will likely blog more occassionally because I have nothing better else to do stuck on the boat once my watch is finished. I study, write some music, and research stocks. This is a normal day underway after work. I like to sleep a lot too, but drills prevent sleep so you do everything else in between. I’m finally qualified so I’ll only have to train for drills which will open more time.

As for am I happy? Well that real estate deal even though it cost me $10,000 felt like buying a bran new car even though it is very new or pretty. I haven’t been very happy lately. Actually this girl I asked to dance and talked to at a concert is really bugging me. I really wish I’d gotten her phone number instead of giving her my fun looking business card! Well I guess I might learn next time, or not. I’m getting fat too. As for personal life fatness sucks. No ninja is quick or stealth-like getting fatter. I plan to exercise more, do more push-ups, and sit-ups, but I have yet to get started. Why? Hmm… a little bit of lazy-ness most likely… Underway you usually get fatter since all you do is eat. I plan to only eat cereal and soups. This should cut down and help me keep that extra sea fat off.

well aloha
-fn


Is the market tired and ready for a nose bleed?

Today most stocks started to show some big red candles engulfing the previous days gains. Most international stocks and indexes, expecially Asia, fell over night. I predict the stocks might rise higher tomorrow, but continue to fall for a few days and then continue their rally since they have been bullishly buying buying buying for the past weeks. One index expecially which has had a second big move is China Index fund (FXI @ $109) currently has had a run from low $80’s to recently $110’s. With the large lower opening price today I think there will be some selling off of some profits during this earning season. I recently bought MAY 105 PUTS. If I’m right I should be sold out by Tuesday April 25. If I’m wrong I’m finished trading stocks for the year. The trade looked very clear and I’m determined that all the indicators and general market is in my favor even with Google.com’s (GOOG @ $471 – after earnings $481) surging profit beating analyst expectations. The overal market has had a good run up and even though I’d like all my stocks to fly high I know its about time for some hard selling. So far economic retail sales and non changing interest rates have made market condition good for bulls and earnings haven’t been so bad either. I think Yahoo.com’s earnings (YHOO @ $27.80) even though were lower the stock will rise because of its real solid value.

Recently my portfolio has been a smelly dump of losers sucking ever profit from me dry. My goal is now to repeatedly play stocks that are profiting me in the correct direction and increase my portfolio to a new high. My account is currently worth around $16,000 down from around $38,000 just since mid Feburary. What I did wrong was get into position and trade after a big win. This I already knew not to do. It’s a general big rule to follow, but I guess the increased account got the best of me. I’m still up for the year maybe + $5000, but I suppose feeling a bit miserable and disfunctional at the moment.

I have not bought Bigstring.com (BSGC.OB @ $.38) because on QCharts it shows buying movement, but it looks like the stock is going to settle a little lower before it moves again so I’m going to wait to buy a large amount of shares. If it does move higher then the public has gained interest and then that will be enough cue for me to know its the right time to invest in it. It maybe be struggling currently, but it is a very new type of email service that I think the trendy crowd will really jump into which will mean big money for the company advertising big names on email accounts.


DJIA down -546 pts at low! All I can say is “wow” and “shit!”

Yesterday, as you should be already so aware of, the China markets had a big correction which basically followed around the world. One of the main causes of the China correction was because asians were buying up stock like no tomorrow. Investing has become huge since the government is helping capitalism and turning asia into a major world power. Now, because of all this buying with no major pullbacks the stock market just went straight up and finally it threw up and just passed out. You should expect upcomming pullbacks. Yesterdays small crash was just the first to more to come including our own market. Analyst keep saying that 2007 will be a very volatile year. Fed Chairman Greenspan and Bernanke say the same too. I think if the banking system can fix fiscal policy then this volatile will be to the upside. The Dow’s low of -546 points yesterday was wowing. I expected buyers to buy up today and make a profit, but I expect by tomorrow even or the end of the week for the market to go further down.

You probably also should notice we are in warnings season when most companies warn for lower profits. With the major drop now in the Dow we are probably going to see stocks drop lower. If you were in any Call options you probably shitted yourself in the pants when China dropped following our market and Europe. I maybe didn’t shit my pants, but the reality check in my stock brokerage account sure did make me think I was about to have a panic attack. Yes, I did see it coming and everyone talks about how Asia was going to crash soon before going back up again, but I don’t think anyone can predict exactly when it will happen. When stocks are going up you don’t buy Puts. I suppose this is just something pricey I’m learning as a student of the market.

I’m going to read one of my commenters books who recommended Gamblers Ruin. It’s on one of my posts that I made a decent profit on. Many people that do not invest saying using the stock market to make money is gambling. I do not like questioning myself, but sometimes I think they are right when I definitely know I gambled a trade. I do not gamble in casinos. I think they are boring. I like playing poker, but I never play for money. I can not spend more then $50 in a casinos on games, although when I trade stocks sometimes I just get into this zone and I don’t even think about the stocks I’m trading, why I’m trading them, and if I should be trading. When this happens I make the worst decisions, trade too much or ALL of my money, and basically trade losing positions. It’s depressing. It’s hopeless. It’s being a totally moron of a gambler.

I really don’t know if its a dependent thing because when I trade I really wish I had someone like myself to over look me or just tell me I’m crazy. Sometimes the finance ninja gets caught in too much action. I’d say the ninja needs to just goto the bar, get a drink, and stay away from his stock trading laptop. My mentor even told me to not trade if you didn’t know where the market was going or if its just too hard to trade. Yes, trading on an easier trend would be more profitable and easy. I guess I just want to so badly get good at this and reach my ultimate goals that principles of consistent tradings get knocked out of my mind somehow.

To any traders out there like me I wish us both the best…to getting some type of help. =D