need help

[Jim Couch]

My wife and I are new to real estate and BP. We have been reading up on the material provided on this site ONLY. I say only because i do not want you to think that we have been sucked in by "Infomercial scam". We are in need of help from the members here at BP. There are questions that i would like some feed back on if someone has time to really help. 

1. in which order do we begin?  setup business; locate property; financing ? 

2. what area should we focus on as beginners? (rental;flip;wholesaling) 

3. Will our availability to credit and financing be a factor in our direction. 

4. Will our location be a factor in our direction? (small rural town north Texas panhandle)

we have seen it written too many times to  "just do it" but at the risk of coming across too green, we have no starting point. I listed only four things above but am i missing the obvious? I feel like i'm more green than i realize and may come across clueless. I am okay with that because i will learn something in return. We have located a few properties in our small town that could be worth looking into further but we really don't know what we even are looking at. In our minds we see the potential but is it realistic? Are we looking at properties and wasting our time because we are going about this in the wrong order? It just boils down to the fact that we are in need of some guidance and coaching.  

Thank you all in advance for your help and guidance. 

[Jon Holdman]

Fix and flip and rentals are two very different businesses.  Rentals build wealth in the long term, require minimal effort once they acquired (though cetainly not zero effort) but don't spin off tons of cash on a daily basis.  You should consider these an investment like stocks or bank CD's.  Earning 10% cash on cash return is pretty good.  You can do better in some areas.  You can do a lot worse in most areas.

Rehabbing, OTOH, is really a job.  You do the work you get paid.  Its a pretty hands on business and does require a significant amount of cash, even if you get a hard money or private lender.  If you do a good job it can produce some big paychecks.  If you mess up, you can end up losing money.

I've done rehabbing and cannot imagine trying to do it at a distance.  Even with contractors is a hand's on business.  If you try to do it at a distance you're going to be handing someone your checkbook while they do the work for you.  You could consider moving to a different area if this is really your goal and your area doesn't work.  I've moved for jobs three times.  MO to TX to CA to CO.