New Year Update and Old Year Wrap

Well 2006 is done, and it was a wonderful and educational year for me. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have learned and help where I could and I believe that it has already begun to lead to a very successful 2007.

In the past year I have worked on projects both for sellers and buyers in Multi-Unit, Single Family Homes, and Tenants In Common deals. I attended classes on appraisal, financing, and other aspects of real estate investment and read several books on business organization, entrepreneurship, and proactive sales. I expanded my network to several investor clients, people within the SF County Housing Authority, Habitat for Humanity, and other Lenders, and most importantly many neighbors in my home neighborhood of Bernal Heights. All the while doing what I do and having fun.

However the biggest achievement of 2006 was my break from a dual career as a Software Engineering Consultant / Real Estate Investment Specialist. I gave up the software all together because I felt that my effectiveness at managing 2 careers at once was less that excellent. I was not able to be exceptional at both jobs at once, so my focusing solely on real estate has boosted the level of my learning and performance in terms of commissions but also (and more importantly) the level of service to my clients and tenants. This has been a very difficult step to make since I had never really been sure of my future direction until recently. I knew that I felt that I needed to change and do something different than engineering, however I could really not put my finger on exactly why. My interest is very much in real estate, but why? without the answer, I could not really be sure that I had made the correct choice. Should I really have left the high dollar contacts for real estate? was that the right decision? was it a mistake? This delema has haunted me for the last 7 years, ever since I left the big experiment with the Dot Com Startup. I could write forever about this (I won't); the essence of my point is that only after taking my leap of faith and following my instincts, was I really able to answer the haunting question: "why am I doing this?" and put my fears to rest. The answer is my mission. The answer is about gratification. The answer is about helping people. My first career was for me. The gratification was in the overcoming of technical challenges. Solving engineering problems is difficult, but in the mess of it, the challenge is fun for a while. Finding the fastest way to do something or fixing the most bug in the software or being in charge of designing this or that widget. It was really exciting, for a while, but it was only self-gratifying. Eventually, instead of being gratifying because it was difficult, it just became difficult.

This is not the way to live. I had said it to myself and others many times before, I had even said it in my mission statement on my website. I say that: "I am doing this to help people and to give back some of the things I've learned about investing about real estate". I hadn't put it together really. That is the answer to the big WHY. Why am I taking the direction I am taking in my career? Because helping and working with people is more gratifying than working as an engineer building machines that do impersonal tasks.

Well that is a lot of discourse on a simple thought, but its big for me and I hope it is enlightening for you. I felt it important that my clients and my network knows what I'm up to and what I'm about.

SO....

This year I am poised to focus my attention to working on sales of businesses, mixed use properties, and more multi-unit properties as well as serving local home buyers and sellers. I currently have a couple deals under contract and I'm pleased with the prospects of the coming year.

I plan to continue my education by taking more required classes for my brokers license, and by self directed reading into investing in real estate, marketing, and business and finance.

Finally, I hope to include many more people in my network. If you are reading this, please let me know and help me build my network of interested and interesting people.

Good Luck to you in the new year.