One might think that a guy with his own web hosting business would own a top-of-the-line cell hone. One would be wrong. I have no cell phone to test this web site on, so I am at the mercy of the program which is creating the mobile version of DFWREIN.

If you have a mobile phone with a browser, please check the dfwrein.info web site and let me know how it looks. Just leave a reply to this message.

Thank you.

In a previous article I said that we probably should have lots of clubs to fill the void left by the latest spate of real estate investment clubs going out of business. After choosing a direction for dfwrein.info I decided I needed to find out just what area of Texas DFWREIN would be covering. I was shocked at the size of the market.

A few months after I got to Texas I read a book about The Metroplex. I don’t have it handy, but I was a bit stunned by how much The Metroplex has grown since then. I am in the habit of calling it the DFW Metroplex. Apparently it’s now the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area or just The Metroplex.

I distinctly remember there being only 13 cities in the area. It turns out there are many, many more cities, towns and Census designated areas. Heck, there are that many counties in The Metroplex. So, here’s a little run down of the cities and areas and towns and counties in the area.

1. Dallas
2. Fort Worth
3. Arlington
4. Carrollton
5. Denton
6. Frisco
7. Garland
8. Grand Prairie
9. Irving
10. McKinney
11. Mesquite
12. Plano
13. Richardson

I guess those are the cities the book mentioned. Somehow I completely missed Arlington. I’ll contribute my lapse to being a new Texan. I have friends in McKinney which I thought was above the Metroplex. There I go thinking a gain.

• Addison
• Allen
• Azle
• Balch Springs
• Bedford
• Benbrook
• Burleson
• Cedar Hill
• Cleburne
• Colleyville
• Coppell
• Corinth
• Crowley

• Decatur
• DeSoto
• Duncanville
• Ennis
• Euless
• Farmers Branch
• Flower Mound
• Forest Hill
• Forney
• Glenn Heights
• Grapevine
• Greenville
• Haltom City

• Highland Village
• Hurst
• Keller
• Lancaster
• Lewisville
• Little Elm
• Mansfield
• Midlothian
• Mineral Wells (partial)
• Murphy
• North Richland Hills
• Rockwall
• Rowlett

• Sachse
• Saginaw
• Seagoville
• Southlake
• Terrell
• The Colony
• University Park
• Watauga
• Waxahachie
• Weatherford
• White Settlement
• Wylie

That’s 51 more. Many of those are bigger (in population) than the city I live near, Stephenville, TX which is outside the Metroplex. It seems I am often on the outside looking in. There are 12 counties:

1. Collin
2. Dallas
3. Delta
4. Denton
5. Ellis
6. Hunt
7. Johnson
8. Kaufman
9. Parker
10. Rockwall
11. Tarrant
12. Wise

Altogeter those areas and hundreds more tiny areas comprise The Metroplax. There are more than 6.2 million people represented here and this web site is dedicated to bringing you news about just one little niche item in The Metroplex.

I was a little scared about the Google page rank. It fell off for a while because all our external links were going to the old web site (dfwrein.com).

When I made dfwrein.info the home page I was afraid I’d lose the Google page rank and for a short while it looks like I did. Now we are back to 2/10.

At one time we were up to 4/10. We’ll get there again. I hope it won’t take the same 4 years though. I’m impatient like that.

As some may know I have been kind of all over the road since I hi-jacked this web site from Cliff. One day it’s not a club. The next day it is a club. You may feel like a Yo-Yo. After brainstorming proved fruitless I did the next best thing. I ignored the web site for a few days. I find that is a great way of solving problems.

It allows me to focus on other important tasks and it helps me come up with many out-of-the-box solutions which I don’t think I would come up with if I just stared at the problem all day.

So, the new direction is this web site will be a directory of resources for real estate investors. It will cater to those investors living in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, but it will contain many resources for all real estate investors. This helps me to focus on subjects that are important to the niche and it helps you figure out what we have assemble here and what we have not.

Look for some changes in the site layout to make it easier to get to the stuff that interests you most and for additional content of interest to real estate investors.

This post doesn’t really have a point. I just need to vent a little.

The Real Estate Investment Gurus never seem to mention the property management side of landlording. They will extol the virtues of the Buy & Hold strategy, but they tend to gleam over the time you will spend mowing the lawn. Don’t get me wrong. I like mowing the lawn. I pay a service to weed eat around homes and I do the mowing sitting down. The problem with mowing is the repairs.

I spend almost as much time under the mower (or without a mower) as I do actually mowing. Or at least that is the way it seems. So far this year I have spent more than $1000 getting the mowers up and running and right now they are both out of commission. I can pay the weed eater guys to mow, but that’s an extra $150 each time they mow. I mow more often than I trim weeds.

The mower just broke and I am really not in the mood to repair it again. I know exactly what is wrong with it and how cumbersome the repair is, but I have like zero energy to do the repair. It’s $32 in parts and about 2 hours of my time in the hot sun. It’s a two person repair, so I’ll get to it in the morning.

Please share any unpleasant (or pleasant) memories of landlording you have in a reply.

I have added new feeds for the local clubs that have asked for a listing here. You can see them on most pages to the right. If you have a physical real estate investment club and would like to be listed, drop me a line with your web site name, address and a short description oabout your club. If you have a virtual (web only) club I have a listing for that too. Send me the same info.

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Whenever I add something new to this web site I noticed a small spike in the number of page impressions. I spend the rare times I am not at the keyboard thinking of things to write which wil generate more interest, more traffic and ultimately more income. I thought about paying a ghost writer to write some articles on topics of interest to Real Estate Investors, but it later occurred to me that there are already a lot of articles like that on the Web.

So, it occurred to me that I could write a search engine to help real estate investors to find articles. Then I thought, hey, I could help people keep track of which articles they read as well. Then you could read everything about rehabbing without rereading several articles or wading through ads for courses on rehabbing. Of course, if you wanted to see all the courses, I could include that as well.

So, this is an announcement for a new service for real estate investors which should allow them to find a lot of pertinent articles and to keep track of them in one place. Watch the comments to this post for service details.

I set up the new DFWREIN forum about 4 or 5 years ago as an alternative to the anonymous posting that was allowed on the aireo.com web site. At that time, aireo.com was the most popular web site in the DFW real estate investor market.

Because everyone who reads a post on the forum can easily see who is writing the post, many people do not post. It’s not just the sneaky, conniving or underhanded people, it’s old real estate investor. I think there is still a romantic feeling to doing a deal in the backroom, thick with cigar smoke, dim lights and a game of poker.

I think a lot of older real estate investors are not used to the idea of everyone knowing their cards. They have been playing close to the vest their entire lives and disclosing their actual position on any subject or any deal is as foreign to them as revealing their hole cards to other players.

I bring this up because when I see a post without comments I think, there is no interest here. Perhaps I shouldn’t post more on this topic. But it turns out that there is a lot of excitement about this article. It’s just backroom excitement.

People call up others they trust and discuss everything without revealing their positions to everyone. They treat posts written here the same way they do their backroom deals. Close to the vest. No one reveals his hand until its been paid for.

My first reaction to hearing about it (and I do hear about it) is that these people are cowards who realize their positions have no merit and can’t stand the light of day. But that’s not it. I think that for all their preaching about win-win solutions these guys are still playing poker. And poker is always a win-loss solution. Always!

I used the poker metaphor on purpose. At the end of the night, poker results in an equal amount of winnings and losses. If you add all the winnings and subtract all the losses then the result will be zero. There is no other possible outcome. It will always be zero.

In economics, that’s called a zero-sum trade. If the winnings are all positive and if the losses are negative then the sum of all the winnings and losses is equal to zero. This is very important to economists because they have discovered that most people make non-zero-sum trades.

Those trades are almost always positive-sum trades. It makes sense. Why trade with others if you always feel like you are losing in the trade? Except for forced trades you tend to support more trades where you feel you came out ahead.

I used to buy and sell used mobile homes. Someone once asked how I keep my buyer from finding out how little I paid for the house I’m selling. My answer was simple. I tell them how much I paid for the home and when I bought it up front.

I purchased one home for $3,500 and sold it to a nice couple a week later for $5,900 with a single cleaning, a lot rent payment and mowing the lawn twice. I explained that the previous owner couldn’t wait 3 months to sell and was willing to discount it and that I was willing to wait for the right price. I sold it with financing on their first visit.

It was a win-win solution on the purchase and on the sale. When I bought it, the seller asked me how much I thought I would get for it and I told him I would sell it for $1,000 down and $4,900 on financing. When he asked me why I was only offering him $3,500, I told him that I needed to make a profit. He sold it to me on our first meeting. It was a win-win for us. He wanted a quick sale for cash and I wanted more inventory to show.

In both situations I wasn’t playing poker. I was making a win-win trades. I didn’t have to keep my cards secret. Everyone knew what I was doing. I didn’t have to keep the address a secret or not advise them to seek out competent legal advice. Heck, I encouraged it. Not because I secretly hoped they wouldn’t but because I wanted people to feel comfortable with their purchase next week and next year. I wanted them to tell their friends and family about the deal they got.

This does not mean you should not take proper precautions. If it is possible for a buyer to close you out of a deal for a bigger profit then it is up to you to structure the deal so that you can’t be closed out. Don’t depend on the kindness of strangers.

A positive sum trade is still a positive sum if all the winnings are on other side and a small loss is on your side of the trade. Your best bet is still your legal and real estate investment counselors.

If you find yourself playing poker, consider stepping back and reconsider the deal. There is probably something you are missing.

It occurs to me that I am an unknown quantity and that I may be making a few people nervous. Let me lay some fears to rest.

Here is some of what I am:

• I am a landlord.
• I own a small mobile home park in Stephenville, TX.
• I also own other property which I rent to make income.
• I am a reluctant web designer who specializes in managed WordPress web solutions.
• I am a Domain Registrar. I own or manage about 50 domains for about $15 per domain per year. AIREO.com, DFWREIN.info and DFWREIN.biz are all registered with me. AIREO.com is managed by its owner.
• I am a web site Host. I have hosted DFWREIN.com and a dozen of others for more than 5 years.
• I am a web programmer. I make a few extra dollars programming and consulting as the IT guy for several customers.

Here is some of what I am not:

• I am not the newest founder of a REI club in any part of Texas.
• I am not interested in starting a club for real estate investors.
• I am not interested in starting a web-based club for real estate investors.
• I am not interested in competing with any present DFW REI clubs.

Cliff Robertson owes me money. I abducted his web sites to get some of the money he owes me back. I have been doing that through advertising. Biting the hand that feeds me (people visiting these web pages) by chasing them away is not my goal. However, I really need to get my opinion out there. Not giving my real opinion because someone may feel offended is not going to happen. If you don’t like something I write, respond. Tell the world. I’m not going to delete it (unless you are being offensive — keep it clean).

I would like to provide the web site sections that every club in DFW needs. Forums and news. I know a few of the people involved with clubs and I know what your budget is really like. I think I can offer these services in a way that benefits both your club and the investor community at the same time. A property board for real estate investors makes sense, but there are already services out there that provide property listings to retail and wholesale markets.

Every time someone gets a club together they get a web site. They set up a forum and real estate investors have to visit every forum to stay in touch. Heaven forbid they mention one club on another web site. It would be nice to have one big forum with private sections for each club and a big section for general REI discussion. That’s the stuff I would like to provide.

So, if you have a club in a small city or in a big metropolitan area I want you as a customer, not as a competitor. I am interested in making your life easier. I think I can reasonably make you and your club more profitable and easier to run.

A few people have written to me off line about filling the hole left by DFWREIN closing. I am not convinced that DFWREIN left a single hole. I believe it left several holes and I would like to see several solutions fill the gap.

If you want to start a club in your area I would recommend that you locate and speak with past and present owners of real estate clubs in Texas. Buy them some lunch and pick their brains.

You will probably find that REI club members want education and networking. Everyone wants to network with the most successful investor who will speak with them or with others who are at their same level of experience.

Education has two main groups of customers. Active investors want to know the newest information and want to skip all the basics. Inactive investors need to learn the basics and hope to find that one idea that will make real estate investing a get rich quick scheme.

That second group is huge. There are a lot of people that are too afraid to do their first deal. Those people will buy the ever-living heck out of guru programs to avoid going out and doing a deal.

I think you will find there are many holes left by DFWREIN. Fill the one’s that need filling and leave the others alone. Your club does not have to be the one-stop shopping place for all real estate investing.