I started this blog as a tool to help me in my real estate investing activities. In this blog, I have all my foreclosed property listings and important websites online, so I have no more clutter and lost clippings of foreclosed properties at home. Old listings are archived and can be accessed as needed (even on my PDA) whenever I want to check if a property has been up for sale for a long time and if selling prices have gone up or down.
Lessons learned
The lessons I have learned along the way are also in my blog so they would serve as my guidance. From the very start, I decided that it would be best to share all these to everyone just in case someone out there would find value in my research.
Thank you!
After 90 days, all I can say is thank you to all of you my dear readers and visitors for all the kind words. You have given me a sense of accomplishment, inspiration, and purpose. As what I have mentioned to a lot of you who have sent me e-mails, I would all the more do my best to share as much as I can and help in any way I could.
Investing in real estate
I would be very happy to learn if any of you have bought your first real estate investment property already and have found success in investing in foreclosures, with a little help from this blog. Even if some would still choose not to invest for now, I would still be happy as you have given me a chance to share with you information about investing in foreclosures, or real estate in general, which I believe is a great investment strategy which works here in the Philippines.
I am not a real estate guru
As I have mentioned before, I am not a real estate guru, I am just another real estate investor in the Philippines who wants to share as much information as I can to fellow real estate investors. I am simply documenting my journey to financial freedom – my goal of accumulating enough passive income to cover our daily expenses so that I can get out of the rat race – and hope that I may be able to help others along the way.
More than enough deals for everyone
Some would probably ask – by sharing information and foreclosure listings, am I not depriving myself of good deals? Or, maybe I keep listings to myself until I secure what I believe are good deals? First of all, I really don’t look at others investors or even home buyers as competition but rather as partners or part of my network.
Secondly, I really don’t have the resources to get all the great deals that I see out there, my target is only about one deal per quarter and I am only focused on certain areas. With thousands of available foreclosed properties all over the Philippines, there are really more than enough for everyone.
More to come
I still have so much more information that I want to share – like how I got started, who are my mentors, what are the challenges that came my way then and now, etc. I can’t wait to share all these, and I intend to do so while introducing improvements as well.
You will notice I was already able to upgrade this blog to a three column template, for better use of our screens’ real estate, so to speak. I have also done a manual categorization of listings per bank/institution for easier access, and to overcome the limitations of tags and lack of categories in the blogger platform (sorry for the geekspeak).
Other plans include putting a calendar that would indicate upcoming auctions, and a directory of bank websites that have foreclosure listings with status updates. I would also probably feature successful real estate investors so we can all learn from their successes and challenges, and a lot more.
By the way, this isn’t supposed to be just about me, it should also be about you, so I invite all of you to participate and share any and all information that can be beneficial to all, which would also include any suggestions you may have to help me improve things here.
Spread the word, thanks again, and I hope to see you around!
Jay Castillo
Real Estate Investor