Week 17 of Self-Employment:

Holy cow, I've reached the 4 month point already! And the interesting thing is that it's taken almost exactly this long to get to the permitting stage for Hudson Storage Garages LLC. But we're almost there. We have funding, we have plans, we have contractors, now onto the construction. 

I spent most of the week getting the schedules for Building 5 in Houlton and the new project in Hudson worked out. We are still struggling to get State approval for Hudson back in time to get started on construction in September. The good news is we have the Permission to Start in hand so we can get going on the footings and foundation for Buildings 1-3. We did find out that we can get an earlier review date of Aug 27th. That is a life-saver. Our original review date was October 2nd and that pretty much leaves us without any time to build the buildings before RVs and Boats are completely out of the water for the winter. We should be on target to get a building up by the end of September which is great news. It's going to cost us, but in the name of getting two buildings up prior to Winter, we'll take it.
Spent the rest of the week networking with a local real estate investor who is investing in the St. Cloud area. I think he has some really solid opportunities that he's looking at. We've both considered putting money into each others' deals if we're low on funds and it's a can't-miss opportunity. Very fun meeting and talking with a like-minded investor. 

With that said, I also appreciate non-like-minded investors too. I went to the Apartment Investing Meetup in Bloomington on Thursday. It's fun to get a few ideas, tips, tricks when it comes to RE investing that is different from what I do. These folks are still investing in commercial RE but it's fun to hear their stories. A person I met at these meetups was interested in investing in my Hudson deal. In the end I was able to go it alone but nonetheless we've kept in touch. He is now doing a deal in Houston, TX for a 600 unit apartment building. That's $25-30M baby! Wow. Pretty impressive stuff. It's just him and a number of friends in his IT consulting sphere of influence. They aren't going to bring all the money to the table but it's an impressive project to tackle. 

Next week we are starting the Hudson Storage Garages project. Can't wait for that. I'll likely have all kinds of lame updates for you! I'm hoping to take pictures from the same angle each day/week to give a bit of a time-lapse. Wish me luck.