This site is dedicated to the real estate investor. If you’re searching for real estate strategies, tools, news, and real estate lessons, you've come to the right place. Why should you take the time out of your busy schedule to read my blog? My resume includes successful “subject to” investing, short sales, mobile home flips, and bird-dogging. And I’ve done all of this as a part time investor. The website's theme is "how to invest part time and get out of the rat race." I chose this theme because I believe the majority of investors fall into this category. Realistically, if 100 people take a real estate course, maybe 30 will use it for 30 days and hopefully 1-2 people will actually buy a house. Once in a while one investor will breakout and figure out the “systems”. I want you to be one of those that break through. I will disclose all I’ve learned since I got started in real estate investing, post pertinent real estate articles, reveal my secrets on how to begin, discuss market conditions, suggest buying strategies, point you to free downloads, and more!
Tip #6 Tenants will push you, stick to your rules!
October 8th, 2006
I have one tenant that moved her 20 year old son without permission many months ago. He ended up fighting a lot with her mother and a few times threw her into a wall! After finding out about this, I quickly went into action and he was removed.
Well, today she calls me and let’s me know that he’s a changed man and needs a place to stay for a few weeks until other arrangements can be made.
I firmly stated that he does not qualify to live in the unit and besides, I have already given her a written ten day notice of non-compliance.
Interestingly enough, her lease ends this month. I need to increase her rent by $25 and she still wants to stay. She admitted that her son gives her a lot of stress and tried to bring me into her life for a long conversation.
Everyone’s life gets complicated, but remember we are just landlords and if we follow the rules, I expect them to do the same!
I was not a willing ear to her conversation today, but it reminds how tenants can push you sometimes.
In the future, this won’t be an issue since I will have property management in place.
Tip #5 Look at assessor data to determine comps on new construction
October 6th, 2006
I am under contract on a new construction house right now so I had an interest in researching comps. At first it was difficult to comp these properties because the subdivision is so new , nobody has sold a house! In addition, its tough to compare properties in the surrounding areas because they are older than this subdivision.
Offer accepted!!
October 3rd, 2006
Since the market has slowed down to a buyer’s market, we decided to go house hunting for a new primary residence. In Tucson, the month of November/December is the best months to buy. We would keep the existing property and put it into our rental portfolio.
The media has talked a lot about the softening market. We decided to test it. About a month ago, we started looking in our target areas. We noticed in several neighborhoods that half of the for sale signs appeared to have reduced pricing with no pending sales. This weekend, we started making some offers.
First, was our neighbor’s house that was taken back from a foreclosure. We made an offer 20k below asking price and asked for cash at closing for repairs. It needed about 15k -20k worth of repairs. The listing agent for the company seemed pretty honest about the situation and kept saying that there is another investor that has placed an offer and if wanted the property, we would need to increase our offer. After counter offering up 5k, we were only 5k off from going into contract. Although the numbers would still work for us, I didn’t like the amount of equity based on the amount work necessary. The house was 10 years old, and needed a complete rehab inside. We decided not to counter offer again. And the realtor was not bluffing, the other investor has gone under contract.
After looking at another house only 5 miles from ours, we noticed a new construction site that was almost closing its doors. Turned out, they had only 4 lots (spec homes) left! These units caught our attention and it turned out that a specific 1863 sqft plan met all of our needs. The company already had incentives that equaled to 22k. We wrote up an offer and explained that we would purchase the house for additional 20k off, so a total of 42k off the advertised price. And to our surprise, they accepted with no counter offers!
Our salesman said not to feel bad about not asking for a lower price because it was difficult to get my offer accepted (maybe true, who knows). We are very familiar with this neighborhood, and the house comes with a lot of great upgrades that include cherry stained cabinets, cherry stained stair rails, corian counter tops, and stainless steel appliances.
The timing was good for us. We effectively got 42k reduction in price based on the change of the real estate market. This is good. Its amazing how much things can change in ONE year. The salesperson said that last year, they required a LOTTERY to sell the first units since there was so much interest. Now, the company is very flexible to get it off the books!
I am happy that we are getting a nice home with some built in equity. I treat primary residences a little different than investments. For investments, the numbers have to work for me to buy. This deal has the best of both worlds.
New Book Review, “Weekend Millionaire Mindset” by Mike Summey & Roger Dawson
September 30th, 2006
When I head into the hills on vacation, I usually pick up a new book release to help pass the time. This trip, I chose Mike Summey’s and Roger Dawson’s NEW book , ” Weekend Millionaire Mindset: How ordinary people can achieve extraordinary success”. I was impressed with the simplicity and writing style of their previous book, and I have to say, this one was not disappointing. Actually, I will purchase several for Christmas gifts this year ( I have several family members that are struggling w/ debt).
Out on vacation 9/21-9/27
September 21st, 2006
Americans work hard (at least I do) and vacations are necessary to unwind or “reset” from the grind of life. I’ll be vacation this week camping, hiking, and looking for critters. I hope to come back refreshed.
Some interesting news for us, our neighbor went through the foreclosure process. I spoke to him a year ago when he was in pre-foreclosure, but he was able to pull himself out. Last weekend, we thought he was cleaning out his garage, but it turns out he was kicked out of place. And the funny part about it was he bought a brand new 30k Dodge pickup just the week before. Its amazing how it can difficult for some people to understand the negative effects of credit and debt. I’m reading Mike Summey’s latest book, the millionaire mindset and it clearly shows in a graph that you need to save some of your earned income for savings or investments or else its jsut a matter of time before your ship sinks! We hope to buy this property.
Part #2 Analysis of a fix and flip
September 19th, 2006
I wanted to focus this discussion on using existing equity for the fix and flip loan program. Below is a quote from a mortgage broker conversation.
1) Please explain how the cross-collateralization works for the down payment on the 90% interest only fix and flip loan. What are the fees involved to use cross-col?
Analysis of a Fix and flip Property..
September 17th, 2006
One of the most popular real estate strategies these days has been the “Fix and Flip” deal. In areas that are tough to cashflow without big down payments, the fix and flip is the best choice to generate cash.
A fix and flip is purchasing a property that is under market value because of it’s deferred maintenance. The goal is to rehab the property to its full potential in the least amount of time. However, the beginning investor can stumble along the way from purchasing the wrong property, under-estimating the repair/holding costs, and not marketing the property properly for a quick sale. Some of these deals are not for the faint of heart. Just watch some episodes of the “property ladder” on the TLC channel.
One year change on house Prices…
September 15th, 2006
Nice summary of national real estatate appreciation from 2nd quarter 2005 to 2nd quarter 2006 presented by the The Arizona Real Estate Notebook Arizona, where I currently invest has been a spectacular year. I am looking forward to picking up some good deals in the next coming months. At this point, everyone and their granda knows that real estate is cooling off. After the mindset adjustment, sellers will realize that prices have to go lower to sell their properties. For the pre-foreclosure market, this means more “notice of sales” and more opportunities.
Tip #4 Rehabbing Tips
September 14th, 2006
As I mentioned in lesson #1 How to start real estate investing (top header of website), networking at real estate club meetings is worth its weight in gold.
Besides the networking, speakers can provide good information as well. The main speaker was a well known rehabber. Pete Young has been speaking about rehabs for many years. He spoke for an hour as a teaser to buy his course or a weekend training seminar this weekend. I’ll won’t be going to either, however, I wanted to list some tips for reducing the costs of rehabbing.
REI Book Review - The weekend millionaire’s Secrets to investing
September 11th, 2006
Have you ever read a book that you like so much that you buy it for family and friends looking to better their lives? I’ve read “Weekend Millionaire’s Secrets to Investing in Real Estate” by Mike Summey and Roger Dawson several times and I have personally given almost ten of these books to friends.
« Previous Page — Next Page »