First off, thank you, thank you, thank you, to all the supportive Ren Menions out there. After hundreds and hundreds of emails we are back to ’speak on it’. So here goes…the biggest updates of all updates.
We are in a holding pattern, (like the picture?). A major holding pattern. We have always been an open book with you guys and why the hell stop now? But first, let’s answer a couple of questions and emails…
#1 No we are NOT dead.
#2 We love our episodes too, we are trying to bring them back
#3 We did bite off more than we could chew, we had good intentions
So let’s get into it…
We have sold all cars from the RAG and the doors are officially closed! We only broke even every month (best case scenario), and it took up way to much time. The closing of the RAG is all good news.
We have sold off all the boxers! Once again, good news, see above.
We have stopped taping The Ren Men Show (for now) because our singular focus was our rental portfolio for the past several months. Once we stopped all the other break-even businesses we realized our portfolio was in bad shape. We were losing nearly 20K a month! Yeah awesome, we know. We ferociously scoured the numbers to see what the $#!4 was going on. We feel we have more of handle on our portfolio, but by no means are we out of the woods yet.
We are in the midst of a major refinance of our portfolio. We really didn’t know what we were doing at the beginning and it really bit us in the backside. Our current goal is to sell all of our current homes and start fresh. We can renovate our houses cheaper, we can buy the houses for cheaper and we have a better grasp on the expectations/responsibilities of our renters.
Monthly repairs will kill profits! Educate your renters on your expectations and fix the little problems before they become major killers. That is all for now kiddos…
Until next time…whenever that will be…
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi guys,
Glad you’re baaaaack. Well, kind of back. Thanks for being so open about your business. It is really hard for some of us (me) to be as transparent as you guys are. Real estate is challenging anytime, but in today’s world…dang. Hang in there. We look forward to hearing about your progress. Heck, you might even get some ideas from some of the Renmenions on cheap financing or whatever. Hang in there!
sorry to hear about the ups and downs recently.
I am, however, glad for the update – I was just thinking a night or two ago, “I sure miss the RenMen updates!”
Hopefully, your business ventures will all turn around soon!
Renmen,
Wow! Thanks for being so transparent…that’s really, really admirable. It’s probably little consolation but I know you inspired your community on here and a lot of us benefited from your videos. You guys were definitely “ready, fire, aiming” and that doesn’t come without risk. I still think you were doing some awesome stuff.
“Monthly repairs will kill profits!” – I mentioned this before but did you try using a home warranty on your homes? Any big repairs will kill profits and the warranty will pay for itself easily when you have something like an A/C unit die. I pay $525/year and $50 per service call but it covers all major stuff and they replace anything they can’t repair. I had a 4 year old frig completely die last year (that never happens! They are usually good for 20 years) and they sent me a $700+ check for a new one. It certainly paid for itself that year. Anyhow, hopefully that’s helpful in some small way.
You guys will bounce back quickly!
Thanks for the encouraging words. We will look into a home warranty for our rentals…thanks…
Todd – were do you recommend going for home warranties? Also, don’t you have to buy them at first purchase? Thanks for info.
I miss you guys every day when I open my feed reader. Glad to hear that the reason of your absence wasn’t something more serious.
Looking forward to hearing/seeing you guys soon.
Good luck on your restructuring (and on your weight loss)
Thanks and thanks…
Renmen!
Well done on identifying a problem and then taking the necessary action to fix it (even if it’s not what you want to do). I’ll add my appriciation for your transparent reporting.
but… looking to the future I’ll hope that you can lay out some of your Real Estate Woes that lead to monthly losses and to a desire to sell the homes and start over with new inventory! (Rich Dad dad says its better to (almost) never sell) I’m surprised that refinancing isn’t a more likely option…
I for one am very excited that you’ll be refocusing on Real Estate as that is the passion I have and why I first became a Renmennion. (I’m actually closing on my first pure investment property – a duplex – next week and I attribute a good part of the courage to do so to you and your videos!)
until next time (may it be soon!)
This is my favorite post yet. Thank you for the honesty and for taking the tough road to make these changes. Stopping to really dissect what is working in your business will pay off huge in the long run. Good luck, and stick to it!
Cheers!
Thanks, we are glad to you appreciated it…
My Ren-Mentors!
I’m sad and glad at the same time. Sad to hear you’re having financial troubles and that we don’t know when we’ll hear from you again but glad to hear you have identified the problem and are taking action towards a solution.
Like Mitch, I would sure love to see the numbers when you have time and why refinancing wouldn’t work. I am sure we can learn more from each other collectively that all of us making the same mistakes.
Thanks again for sharing and teaching. Don’t forget us!
Darcy.
Hope it all works out for you guys. Good luck.
Thanks!
Is nice to have news from you. I imagined you were reingeneering your business.
We were, are and will always be…
Hi Ren Men, I’ve been watching your episodes from London UK over the last year or so, really great and really good fun! I got a bit worried when you disappeared. Times are tough but keep your chin up and get through it, then you will have an even better story to tell! Hopefully hear from you soon
What methods do you use to dump your dog properties?