Objective

I just wanted to share my thoughts about the frameworks in the Flex environment. You may have noticed that I am in love with Spring when I write Java code, but how about Flex? For a simple example application I go with KISS (keep it stupid simple) approach, but for serious data driven app I utilize a framework.

How to choose a framework that works for You

Firs of all you need to know what you are looking for, because if you do not know where you are going, any path will take you there. When I first started to p[lay with Flex about 3 years ago, I noticed that I need to add some structure to the application. Since I was already using Spring I started looking for a framework. At that point in time there where only two alternatives worth looking at: Cairngorm (heavily pushed by Adobe) and PureMVC.

To select a framework I used both framework to build a simple sample application. After spending a day on the exercise I chose PureMVC. PureMVC solution was cleaner, it suited my need better and I felt that it did a better job at structuring the application. I stuck with PureMVC fro quite a while, Until couple month ago I decided to take a look of something better came along.

All the hype was around this English word "Mate", meaning friend or buddy. Even some developers around me have deep religious belief that Mate will save the world. So I had to take a deeper look at this framework. I build a simple application to get a feel for the framework and found that I do not like quite a lot of things about Mate.

First of all everything is done in the sudo code called MXML. I like writing code, I like to have control and make things exactly like they should be and generated code not allays works exactly like I need it to. Then I started looking into some other aspects of the Mate framework and found a better solution. If you are interested in a deeper reading about what I do not like about mate here are couple posts from Shaun that I agree with:

AS3 Dependency Injection and [Autowire]
Another Architectural Framework, But Why?

After looking around I chose to use Robotlegs Framework. It gave me exactly what I needed: dependency injection, mediators and proxies. What you need for your application may be completely different and you may choose another framework, but give robotlegs a good look over to see if it will fit your need too.

Conclusion

Select a framework with a particular need in mind, don’t just use one because Adobe pushed it or your mate recommended it. Understand framewrok’s pros and cons and choose the one that give you the most bang per line of code or xml if that is your coding flavor.

Let me know in the comments which other framework you have used and would recommend to others.

On another note, we are filing our first eviction in 3 years or real estate investing. That is a great track record, but I rather not do it. Sometimes you just have no choice. To have even a slight chance of getting our money we have to go to court. I feel for the family that has to move out, but we can not afford to run a charity.

I came to a realisation that the only way to freedom is internet business. Real estate is great, but you have to be there all teh time. You need to go see houses, buyers and sellers. Unless, of course, you are a multi millionaire and can just buy and sell skyscrapers and shopping mals or big apartment buildings.

To have freedom to travel and work from anywhere I need to be location independent. I have this dream of renting and RV and driving around the USA one summer. To make this work, I need a business that will run itself with minimum involvement form me. The only way I see it – take it to the internet. I allready have multiple websites up and running, but only one has potential to bring any substantial income this year. So now I have crafted a plan to launch 2 products taht I can sell online. And one of them has the lucrative “monthly subscibtion” feature.

I am working on the first one already. I will be releasing a Beta pretty soon. And the best part of it – I am planing on giving the base version out for free.

So here it is. How that I have promissed to you, that I am gonna do it, I have no other choise, but to do it.

HI,

I am back from the long break! inthe time I was away I had a life changing experience – birth of my daughter Luka.  It is truly a life changing experience. Now that we are over the initial shock and trying to adjust to new way of life (read – no sleep) I will be getting back to online marketing.

First one was for life coach. I spent couple evenings setting it up. It is running on wordpress platform. Do you realize that wordpress is not only for blogging? If you need update the content constantly, wordpress is an excellent choice. So there is that, just initial content, need to do much more search engine optimization…..

Second one was created, because I felt a vacuum in one particular market segment. It was homes for sale with owner financing or rent to own programs. In essence a site where people can find homes for sale without bank qualifying. I found couple of those, but they where localized, none had enough homes to be effective. So here it is – a national rent to own and owner financed homes for sale website.

It still is in beta and I am adding features as I go….. and waiting for google to show up. Once it is in the index what would be the best way to promote it?

I just spent good half an hour searching for online marketing blogs. Unfortunately all I was able to find is a bunch of crap. Pardon my French. Almost all the blogs I found where so overloaded with ads, had almost no information about online marketing and tried to sell me something. I realize everyone needs to make a living, but what happened to just sharing information?

Has anyone found a decent blog about online marketing?

It all boils down to 3 key indicators, at least for me:

1. location
2. situation
3. deadline

Like you already know the 3 key factors determining the price of any piece of real estate are: location, location, location. So first we look at the location of the home. Is this home in the good area of town? Is it even in the area we do business in? If the main source of your leads is from direct mail, leads should be in the right area of town. Signs, on the other hand, bring leads that are in other states. So check the location first. If it falls into your business area, take it, otherwise pass and go to the next one.

BTW, you have chosen the area you will do business in, haven’t you? Do not spread yourself too thin. We chose to do business primarily in the North east quarter of Atlanta. If I would do business in the whole metro area I can have a drive of more then 2 hours between the houses in the south and north suburbs. Imagine that you have to manage the renovation for 2 houses at the same time which are 2 hour drive apart.

Anyway, back to prescreening. The second thing we will look at is the situation. We want to work with motivated sellers. Not someone who is thinking about selling the house, but with someone who NEEDS to sell. And to determine that we need to know the situation. The situation can be: divorce, job loss, illness, job transfer, can not maintain house anymore, can not afford payments anymore, etc. We need to see a situation where they really need to sell. If the sellers say “I want to….”, pass this deal. You will spend weeks spinning your wheels and in the end come up with nothing.

The third and last thing we are looking for is the timeline. When the sellers need to move? Is it next week, next month, or some time in the future? This is important. If you hear the seller saying “I really need to sell this home in 2 weeks, because I have been transferred to another state and have to start working there from next month.” you have the situation and deadline. If you hear “I wan to sell in next couple months. I would really like to move to this state to be closer to my grand children.” pass this deal. There is no situation or deadline. The key phrase here was – “want to”.

So we have checked the location, the situation and the timeline. All are good we play, one of them missing we pass, or put it on follow up if the deadline is not there yet. If we play we go to the next step – negotiate and sign the contract.

1. Direct mail
2. Referrals
3. Signs

Dirtect mail : the most cost effective and predictable source of leads. 80% of our leads at the moment of writing this come from direct mail. A lot of people I meet say that direct mail does not work. It does not if you do it wrong. For direct mail to work you must have 3 things right: the list, the message and repetition.

First of all you need a list of people to market to – a targeted segment of people. What would be a good target to mail to? People who really need to sell their home? People behind on their mortgage payments? Someone who has recently been divorced? I think all of them are perfect candidates to receive a letter from someone offering to buy their house.

Second you must write to your list about their problem. They are not interested in how big your company is or how long you have been in business. All they care is how they can get rid of their problem. So write to the people who are behind on payment about their situation and how they can benefit by calling you.

Third thing you have to mail them multiple times. Sending one postcard to 1000 people will not do the trick. You must, I repeat, you must mail them at least 4 times. Would you like to convince 1000 people 25% of they way or 250 people 100% of the way? The choice is yours.

Referrals : do not be afraid to open your mouth and tell other people what you do. The longer you are in business the more people will know what you do and refer othes to you. Do not be afraid to ask the sellers to refer others who need to sell their house to you. This does not cost you a dime, but brings great results with time.

Signs : the best way to get a quick inflow of leads. Follow county and city ordinances -you do not want to pay fines for illegal signs. Signs work great for a very short time. Put out 20 “we buy houses” signs and you will get 20 to 100 calls depending on the weather and where your signs are. The only catch is that the leads are unpredictable: your sign may be on the north side of town and the lead will come in for a house on the south side, more then 1 hour away, or better in a different city or even state.

If you do these 3 things and do them right your phone will ring day and night with motivated sellers calling you with houses they are ready to get rid off.

So what are you doing now to attract sellers? Is it working? Are you ready to try something that does?

Since then we have revamped our marketing to sell and now we are working on improving our buying marketing. Just recently we have redesigned our website to sell your house fast in Atlanta. We are currently working on couple more websites some of which are real estate related and some are not.

I have made a commitment to myself to blog more often about what is happening in our business and share my knowledge on how to start investing in real estate.

I will see you in the trenches.

So what other ways can you purchase this house? The conventional way would be to go to the bank and get a loan. But wait, there is more. With current situation in lending industry the best deal you will get will require you to put at least 10% down and your interest will be somewhere in 9-10% range. So you will need about $15k to put down and you monthly payment will be $1,140 just for principal and interest. Add taxes and insurance and you are looking at $1,400+ per month. So the conventional way you need more money to put down and your payment is higher.

Also you can go and borrow hard money. Hard money is called hard money, because there are hard rules. You will have to pay about 5 points which is 5% of the loan amount and you will be able to borrow about 70% LTV. LTV stand for loan to value. So if in this case the value is $163k, so LTV comes to about $115k. So you need to buy properties way bellow market value and it will cost you about $6k to get this loan. So in this case you need money up front and the payments are high and LTV is low.

So considering the 3 ways you can buy houses, the Sub2 way looks pretty darn good. You do not need to go to the bank and apply for a mortgage and you do not need to borrow hard money. Plus the monthly payment is usually lower and the mortgage is not showing up on your credit report. Once you get about 10 loans in your name you will see that it is very hard to get more.

So the moral of the story is that in current market, at least in Atlanta area, there are so many houses for sale that we do not buy any other way, but subject to existing loans.