Cook Squared Enterprises: The Beginning

I have decided to start a blog chronicling the rebirth of Cook Squared Enterprises, the real estate business my wife and I started several years ago with our first investment in Detroit.  The ups and downs, tears of joy and pain, will hopefully serve others well as they pursue similar endeavors.  Friends and family alike seem to enjoy our tales of woe and comical misfortune as we battled the Detroit Water Company, an organization comparable to the relentless Borg for Star Trek fans, (for others, just substitute the most evil thing you can think of and that would be the Detroit Water Company).

 

Other more comical mishaps we hope to avoid this time around involved the surly contractors who drink on the job.  The adage you get what you pay for really applies here.  Projects filled with cost overruns, surely due to the high beer tax in
Detroit, along with an old house that seemed to be a death trap lying in wait for its next victim combined for some long penniless nights.  For those of you who have ever tried negotiating with a contractor with nothing to lose (not even his teeth), you will know that my Cornell degree add very little value to this situation.

 

But for the grace of God and some great tenants, all is well that ends well.  After taking a two year hiatus, Cook Squared Enterprises is back in business.  Armed with a new Cornell MBA in Real Estate, we are pursuing our first apartment building in Greensboro, North Carolina, a great southern town experiencing moderate growth.  Again, we are starting with a small budget, so the readers of this blog can expect plenty of hilarity as we try to save money using family, friends, and others to get off the ground.