Hi everyone. This is my first post to Active Rain. I'm 61 years old and have had quite a ride in life so far. My wife and I have been married for 40 years, we had 6 kids and now 8 grandchildren. We've moved 12 times during my career in Corporate America, which gave me lots of exposure to the Real Estate business since we bought 12 homes and sold 12 homes during that time. I left Corporate America after 30 years (I was a VP at PepsiCo) and decided that I was smart enough and bold enough to start my own business. I went to work in the Manufactured Housing business and became a General Manager for a couple of years to learn that business. Then I opened my own Manufactured Housing & Construction business in Indiana. I thought I was on top of the world and was spending all of my stock options, 401K, savings etc. on the business. I spent like I had PepsiCo's money behind me - but soon found out it was my money and it was going out the door a lot faster that it was coming in. Needless to say, I ended up closing the business after 5 years and went bankrupt.  I decided to join my son in the Real Estate business here in California. He had started up a company about 5 years ago and was very successful at it. I got my license and have been selling Real Estate for about 2 years now and I only have one regret...that is that I didn't do this 10 years ago!! I LOVE this business. I love helping people and I empathize with both my buyers and sellers. I've been pretty successful at it and even in this down market, I've found that I can find business ... especially from referrals. I'm starting to "dabble" a bit in the commercial Real Estate world and am enjoying that too. I've been lucky to latch on to an investor who is pretty aggressive, but wants to find "deals"... I've put in offers on at leasst 5 REO properties, but I'm finding that the banks are not negotiating at "fire sale" prices that my investor typically wants to pay. He's more in the school of paying 65 cents on the dollar asked. These offers are summarily rejected by the banks. Is anyone experiencing some positive transactions with the REO properties out there? If so, how do find the ones who will actually "deal"?  I found a great property at a great price from a flyer I got the other day from Rehablist.com and my investor put an offer on the property and we'll be closing on it in 2 weeks. I've tried to track down properties on realtytrac.com but I come up dry on how to contact the bank who actually owns the property (Bank of America, Wells Fargo etc.) Anyone have advice as to how to locate the right person at the bank to negotiate with? Well this is rather lengthy and I'm going to close for now and start reading other blogs...but I thought I'd get started. Any help you can pass on will be most appreciated. In the meantime, I hope you are doing well!!  Sincerely,  John Thyne - Ventura California