Live from Tallahassee

[Derek Giles]

Hey everyone.  I have been reading the forums for the past few months.  Every time I would google something I end up getting directed to BP so I finally signed up about a week ago now just getting to my introduction.  I live in Tallahassee Florida and want to get into real estate.

I work in restaurant supply sales full time and cover about an hour radius around Tallahassee.  I'm going to be completely honest before moving to Florida my wife and I owned a home in Minnesota.  The house was not bought as an investment but as our home.  

There was a series of bad events that took place.  My wife and I were high school sweet hearts and fresh out of high school we bought the house and got married afterwards.  We paid WAY too much for it it was priced way above the market value(we didn't know this at the time.)  I ended up getting laid off from my job making 40k a year and picked up work only making about 20k a year.  We couldn't keep up the payment living there so we became landlords by default.  We moved to a larger down where more work was available and rented our home out.  We were losing $150 a month.  Renters paid every month and then when they were done with their 6 month lease I went to go do the walk through and the house needed a ton of work and all new appliances.  Had a brand new stove that had been a wedding gift in the home they broke the glass cook top and busted the door on it.  We didn't have the money to fix it up to rent it out and couldn't afford to keep it.  The foreclosure finished two years ago.

Is this tragedy a blessing in disguise.  During the time of renting it I started to read a lot of information about real estate online and became extremely interested in it.  We want to get into flipping houses.  We've got about 15k saved up right now in a savings account.  I am working on getting my real estate license as I have read on BP over and over that it is a good idea.  Now, with our credit score being shot what would y'all recommend for us.  

Would it be a good ideas to look more into this deal? A 3/2 mobile home on 1 acre of land. Asking price is 52k, renovations needed 20k, comps in the area 100-120k. It is an REO with seller financing. They'll only finance the house not the rehab 20% down 10% interest rate and they'd set it up on a 15 year mortgage.

[Abel Curiel]

Sounds like a great idea! Keep up the saving and don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone to earn some extra income. My partner and I have begun using e-commerce (Ebay, amazon, IG, and soon Etsy) and Uber as sources for extra income. These aren't the only ways but they have definitely helped thus far.