I am an editor at the Wall Street Journal working on a real-estate investing book. I need some help.
I am looking all over the country for investors and landlords, part-timers and full-timers, who can share a few minutes on the phone to discuss your businesses.
I am interested in a wide spectrum of experience, from someone who just rents out a vacation home now and then up to someone with a sizeable portfolio of apartments, houses and commercial properties.
I am especially interested in talking with people with good stories to tell–people who have:
1–Started off very small and grown a business over time–someone, say, who started with a two-family home and now has multiple properties.
2–Made use of a local network of real-estate professionals–lawyer, agents, appraisers etc.–to get started and to build your business.
3–Prospered from using online real-estate bulletin-boards and forums (like this one).
4–Renegotiated deals after learning in due diligence that a building wasn’t all that you thought it was when you made your offer.
5–Made the transition from residential to commercial properties, especially a large multi-family property.
6–Acquired and operated small “strip centers” and office buildings.
7–Used appreciation in hot real-estate markets to invest in properties far away (ex: a Californian using his/her equity run-up to invest in Texas or elsewhere).
8–A sample business plan that we may use to show how to present a proposal to potential partners or lenders.
9-Have experience with different forms of property ownership: partnerships, limited partnerships, S or C corporations, LLCs.
10–Have learned lessons that can be helpful to novice investors.
Please no hucksters or scammers. I’m interested in people who are in the real-estate business, not people who are in the business of conducting real-estate seminars or writing real-estate books.
Above all, I am looking for interesting people with interesting stories to tell, amusing and informative anecdotes that will help others understand the real-estate business. I am looking for people who will be open about themselves and their businesses.
The book is tentatively titled: The Wall Street Journal Complete Real Estate Investing Guidebook and is set to be published late 2006 or early 2007. It is being published by Wall Street Journal Books and Crown/Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House. It is part of a series of Journal books we’re launching, the first of which has just come out.
If you think you might be interested in talking, please post replies to this note. Tell me a little about yourself and your business, where you operate and how to contact you.
Thanks so much for your attention and your cooperation.
Regards,
David Crook
Editor
The Wall Street Journal Sunday