As many might be aware this blog was recently relaunched in March 2008, after about 8 months of silence.

Originally, I lost the blog posts that I’d had, and it appears google is still punishing me because they can’t find the links to those posts anymore. Using a bit of ingenuity(aka the waybackmachine at archive.org) I’ve found the old posts and have been adding them, post dating them of course for the original date they were posted.

Next I’m adding 301 redirects via htaccess to make sure that everything is pointing to the right spot.

Hopefully this is enough to get google to give me some PR love. At least Alexa still like’s me!

If you notice old blog posts going to your feeds you can ignore them or re-read them if you want to. Just don’t judge me on them as I think my blogging style has improved greatly since those early nights in 2007, when I started out blogging about the Law of Attraction.

I have it on good authority that I’ll have the funding for our roadtrip this week. Give a few days to gather up all the equipment, we will be launching on our trip, maybe on monday – June 23rd.

Visiting 50 states is going to be a huge endeavor. I’ve promised my sponsor that I can and will complete the tour and interview 50 bloggers in 50 states(and some of Canada). If funds are stretched though I have the option of finishing the roadtrip remotely. But hopefully between sponsors, donors, etc we’ll be able to get it done.

My sponsor is lining me up an interview possibly with Amber Mac a tech vlogger / journalist who is big in Canada – also I’ve dropped an email to John Chow – who has agreed to do an interview IF I can get there before he leaves for a month in Mid-July.

I’m starting in Ohio and have to race to get the interviews done in the eastern USA then get to Vancouver, BC as fast as possible.

Interviewing John Chow would be a huge opportunity, and will help push the exposure this trip gets. I’ll also be interviewing a less famous blogger in BC  – my goal is to give the average joe blow blogger some exposure and interview everyday joe’s. But a john chow here and there will definitely be nice too.

STay tuned – this is going to be big.

We still need bloggers – especially in Northeastern, OH – Northern PA – and Northern NY (my first 3 stops.)
Submit your blogs here!

Shaker heights, in Cleveland, ohio is a remarkable community. The school system is probably one of the best in the county. Houses range from $150,000 – $220,000.

Yet – if you know where to look, you can find a few bank foreclosed homes that with a bit of paint, maybe a few new fixtures they could be sold for $100,000-200,000.

These homes range anywhere between $10,000 – $30,000. I’d say we would probably need an additional $10,000 – $15,000 for repairs and upgrades. Total out of pocket would be: $20,000 for a $10,000 house. The total we could then sell it for is $120,000.

That’s $100,000 profit. There’s even a chance we could get a lot more, this is a low figure. As our investor we would give you a 60% cut which would be $60,000 or more depending on the sale price. If you’d like to do another flip with us after that we would use some of our earnings from the first to pay for 50% of the 2nd flip – so you’d only need to invest 50%. On each of these additional flips we will receive 60%  – 10% extra because we will be doing the hard work of renovating it ourselves.

My wife’s parents are both contractors and she has helped build 3 houses herself – we have the experience together to do most of the work ourselves, saving the cost of contractors.

You can check out the Shaker Heights area at City-data.com

If interested drop me an email at: patrickwcurl@gmail.com

 

Roadtrip Update:

Sorry that they’ve been few and far between.

I’m currently waiting for Overlay.tv to finish going over the contract I sent them – and hopefully I will have $5000 for my roadtrip with-in the week. Everyone there has been a big help and the money will go towards acquiring a laptop, camcorder, gps, and pay for the outrageous gas prices for the trip.

I don’t know if $5000 will be enough for the whole trip – but I’m certain it is enough for the first half of the country. I’m hoping to pick up momentum and get sponsors / advertisers to keep it going.

Currently it’s been rough to keep updates coming — as my new house – doesn’t have running water or electricity. It’s quite a doozy – my wife and I also are between jobs as we just moved out here. To say the least it’s been interesting. I almost feel like a pioneer – living by candlelight errr I mean flashlights.

About our Move to Cleveland

Our house definitely needs a lot of work – we’re estimating it may take $10,000-20,000 to get it good enough to sell. But we paid $3000 to get the house, and currently it appraises at $115,000 in it’s current state – we figure when we’re done we’ll be able to turn around and sell it for possibly $140,000.

Not bad for a $25,000 investment (or less)…. We’re also planning on living in it for maybe 3 years, it’s rent free living, the house is huge – and the neighborhood is one of the fastest improving neighborhoods in all of Cleveland.

A cop we talked to a few days ago said that he’d pulled out more dead bodies off our street than reside in the cemetary – which was a bit startling – but he also hasn’t worked in our neighborhood in about 5-10 years.

According to the power technician our neighborhood has improved a lot – a local hospital has been buying up a lot of the nearby buildings and has built a huge hospital presence.  They even have their own police force and have been making the entire neighborhood a lot more secure. A year ago they were even offering incentives for moving into the neighborhood – as long as you, or your children had no criminal history. Their’s maybe 3-5 foreclosures / boarded up houses and about as many houses that are currently being fixed up and remodeled.

I’m hoping to hold on to the house till the housing crisis is over then sell it, when it’s a seller’s market again. We do have some differing opinions as to the value of the home. When calling our insurance agent to get homeowners insurance – she suggested that according to an insurance appraisal 6 month’s ago the house was appraised at 340,000.  I definitely like the sound of that, as soon as we get some of our repairs done – and get running water / electricity etc – I’m going to have another appraisal done and see what it’s really worth, I do know that it’s a 3 story house with over 3000 square feet. It’s a Victorian Cottage Style home.

Anyways – just thought I’d let ya’all know what I was upto.

I’m excited to get the roadtrip on the road. As soon as I get my laptop I will also be able to make a lot more frequent posts as well, currently I’m just able to connect via the library.

It kinda sucks, but I just keep telling myself that now I’m a homeowner, and things will be wonderful when we finally finish fixing up the house and selling it.

I must say I did miss Ohio – I missed the green / rain. It doesn’t rain as much in Utah. I don’t like the humidity all that much – at least the sweating part -lol … But I couldn’t stand being uber dry either.