Mike Henderson 303-949-5848 Genius Ventures

I find April 15th to be a wonderful and liberating day to be free from taxes. These are my two boxers. Do you think I'd rather play with them or play with Quicken software.

You can see after a couple days of neglect, in their own mind, I gave them each a bone for the celebration party. They quickly forgot about me and our filing day party. Tax day is so awful and hard. First off I don't have an accountant. I am my own accountant. I also run my own IT department so there can be some extra pressure from that.

Tax day is like going under the knife from a financial perspective. You can live and spend and delude yourself all year but this day you are laid out for all the world at least the IRS anyway. This is the ultimate form of accountability and responsibility. You are under the microscope.

... Once it is done though and the return is filed it is an incredibly liberating feeling. It is a great opportunity to reevaluate and what you will do better at. I was up until 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning in order to get them done. I got everything except my last two pieces of information that I needed from my wife. Once that was done I got a few hours sleep before two different meetings about doing short sales.

It was nice to be done. Once you're done you can back file your forms and records for 2007.

I just delievered my bad news to the client an hour ago. The property that we worked so hard on and were very nervous about making the offer the night before was sent in. Another offer came in that morning all cash no contingencies, we lost. I decided to tell him in person simply I didn't want to duck giving bad news in person.

An hour later I got a call back from the agent that said the bank accepted our offer on another deal. It was our first accepted offer out of 30 in the past month. Thank You! I cant wait to call him.

The conversation is great to an outsider

Me: Great News you bought a house!

Investor: Really? Which one?

Me: 13XXX 4X Ave in Denver, Colorado.

Investor: Which one was that?

Me: The one that had the washer and try in the downstairs bedroom or living area.

Investor: Yep I remember that one now, it was the one you didn't like that much. It need a ton of trim work.

Me: That's right we did offer on it. The numbers work and we got to buy one.

Investor: What did I offer on that?

Me: 67K

Investor: What was it listed at?

Me: What does it matter. You did the analysis and the numbers worked at that level.

(On a side note we have made 30 offers over the last thirty days. The investor was traveling for his day job and on day 4 of the convention circuit. This is hell if you haven't done it yourself.)

Investor: Yeah I remember. They originally wanted in the upper 70's and we offered low 60s. They countered in mid 70's. We called them back and told them we aren't even interested at that price. If you drop the price in the future let us know because we do like the property and do have the ability to close quickly.

I can continue this as it continues through the closing process. What is so funny if you look at it from one party eavsdropping from the investors side

Which one?

Which one was that?

What did I offer on that?

Stay tuned and wish us luck.

I have avoided looking at my Roth IRA account recently. I think it was since January when I last checked. I know exactly what was in my portfolio why it was there and what price I bought it at. Of course it was ugly ... Just like everyone elses stock portfolio. I've been damn busy, but I still watch CNBC when I can. I already owned BAC and even double my position last fall (Before the Merrill deal).

The prices were so low that there was a pretty firm bottom. I finally have hope with some of the political decisions and rhetoric that I hear coming out of Washington. I saw were the prices were of the banks and decided to take the plunge. I looked at my available cash, thank god there was some. I also had to sell one of my tech stocks SIGM (only down 10% from my price point last year). I decided to place a relatively equal position in three banks BAC, WFC, and USB. My entry points were $3.17, $8.57, and $8.68. As Cramer would say BOO-YAH! This post talks about why I thought it was a good time to buy.

I think I've got some pretty good karma working. I decided to officially take the plunge around last October in jumping into the Real Estate and Financial industry full time with both feet. This was after about a year of research.

When I got my mortgage brokers license par rate was around 6.25%. It dropped down to about 5.5% within a month of me getting my license. I recognized that the mortgage rates would go down before the Real Estate market turned. I was right.

I started to then get my Real Estate license. This goal was officially achieved on February 11, 2009. January was one of the all time lows or the all time low for home sales in Denver. Now that I got in can I call the bottom? If it's not right there it is really freaking close.

The bottom line is if you are an investor, homeowner, or homebuyer who wants a broker who can understand the macroeconomic picture and how it interacts with each other or an investor who is trying to allocate capital across various asset classes then you know who to call for your Colorado expert.

You can read my blog about the house we saw. The side story. The house was actually nice and finished pretty well. The agent was walking through the house with us and we were making comments as to what was done and why. She pointed out some things that she would have done differently.

I was shocked that the agent wasn't more involved in the process. When my client and I look at a house we determine if it works best as a fix-and-flip or a buy and hold project. We also talk about what needs to be done. Most of the time it is different to determine what needs to be done depending on the exit strategy. You do things differently for a buy and hold vs. a fix and flip.

If you are using a Real estate agent to help you find a good deal it is a great benefit. My wife and I are trying to do our first fix and flip ourselves and I know what to look for, why don't you ask their opinion on what needs to be done? I'm not charging an extra fee or by the hour why not ask my advice? Ultimately it's the investors money on the line and it's their decision, but not asking my advice is crazy.

Do other brokers just go hey here is the house call me when it's done and I'll sell it. If that is their philosophy then you are working with the wrong broker. My goal is to sell your fully renovated house as fast as possible, and for the most money possible.

If your broker is not doing this please give me a call and I can help you out in the Colorado market.

I recently just got my real estate brokers license. I haven't officially become a Realtor yet, I've been busy and I'm also waiting for my first listing. My focus is working with investors and buyers. I've got one of the greatest clients in the world, I just wish they had more money, but we'll definately get a couple of properties acquired quickly.

I'm showing my client around Southwest Denver.

This is one of the areas I'm targeting to become an expert in for rentals and fix and flips. My client is also on the same page that this is a good area. (If you want or need more explaination of this map please contact me directly). We're tourning about 8 properties in the area and in the course of driving we go by an open house sign. I suggest that we take a look at it. He agrees, we want to see how finished properties in the area look like and what they are going for. It's an excellent way to look for comps in my opinion.

We walk in as the agent is setting up and she greats us outside and we walk into the house. My client is walking first and he introduces himself. I'm right behind him and I say that I'm the agent and Jon is the investor. The broker says to Jon, "I've got several more properties that are coming available in the next several weeks." Then she hands the card directly to my client.

I'm a little shocked by this. I thought that was a big no-no. Is this an ethical or legal violation or merely poor behavior? Does it matter if they are an agent or a Realtor?

I've got a great relationship with my client and we laughed about it in the car after looking at the house. I'm looking for ideas on how to handle this in the future.

I'm a mortgage broker as well and I'm familiar how other brokers always try to steal or undercut your price. As a broker my philosophy is to keep my clients happy and they won't leave. I thought Real Estate brokers had different rules.