December 5, 2011

As an introduction to 3dog Properties I thought that it might be a good idea to explain how we came to be.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to go all the way back to the beginning, just far enough back to give you some idea of my path from there to here.

I think it all started with “This Old House”.  I was fascinated with “This Old House”, I loved the idea that you could take a piece of history, modernize the interior to match the needs of families today, and save it for future generations.  I also possessed the healthy respect for trees and the knowledge of what is required to create a piece of lumber that seems universal to people from the Pacific Northwest.  Those two things coupled with a family legacy heavy on the principle that you need to work hard to achieve anything in life led to my housing philosophy.  Find a house with great bones, with spaces that work for your lifestyle, buy it cheap, fix it up, sell it for a profit, repeat.  That sounds so easy on paper, it didn’t turn out to be quite so easy but I loved it.

At first this was a manageable “hobby”, we’d fix up the houses we lived in and hold down full time jobs to pay the bills.  But gradually two things started to converge in my mind, first working for someone else kind of sucked, it involved two of my least favorite things, sitting in endless meetings where nothing gets done and commuting.  Unless you’ve spent a winter commuting through the rain, muck and yuck in Seattle, you can’t quite understand my loathing for commuting.  The second realization that was dawning on me was that not everyone had my innate ability to walk into a house and immediately see it’s potential, or conversely it’s liabilities.  This came so easily to me that I didn’t understand it to be a talent but as shows like “House Hunters” and “Sell This House” burst onto the scene I was exposed to more and more people who seemed to reject a house because of paint color, wallpaper or an ugly kitchen or bathroom.

That’s when it hit me, maybe I could do this for a living.  Maybe I could showcase the great features of a property, fix the aspects of a house that were unlivable, and in the process save a piece of history.  If you add in a couple more of my heart felt beliefs and liberal tendencies you can see that it was a short step to the philosophy behind 3dog Properties. “Better Lives through Better Housing.”

Tamara

It’s a drizzly overcast day here in Central Texas which given the drought is a good thing. This is my first post to the blog. I’ve been fighting with getting my website revised for 24 hours now before breaking down and contacting Start Logic’s help desk. Luckily the problem was them not me as they say and they were wonderful about getting the new page functional. Now it’s up to me to add content which I will be working on over the next few days.

The intent of this blog is to discuss all things construction and real estate related and let you live vicariously through a full time real estate investor/remodeler’s trials, tribulations and hopefully triumphs. In the next few days I’ll fill you in briefly on our history as a company and bring you up to speed on our latest project which we are just about to get under way.

Until next time, stay dry and stay safe.

Tamara