Broke Cash Investor - Can We Do It?

[Casey W.]

Starting with no money in 2017, my wife and I decided we wanted to be cash real estate investors. For personal reasons, we have committed to not borrowing money for any reason. I understand this is contrary to all good real estate investing advice, but just accept I have a mental defect that will never allow me to accept borrowing money and go from there. 

We saved monthly for over a year and in the fall of 2018 we purchased a half acre of land with a 1990s model single wide house trailer on it for $15,000 from a local real estate investor who had abandoned the project after letting it sit on the MLS for a year at 40k and needed money for another project. We did some heavy cleaning and had it sold within a couple of months for $25,000. We took that, continued adding money monthly, and watched the market for another deal. About 6 months later, in May of 2019, we purchased a beat up 3 bed, 1 bath brick home near a college in Florence, Alabama for $35,000 from a bank. We put another $15,000 into it over the course of 6 months while waiting on the right of redemption to expire. Once expired, we sold it for $85k. After Realtor fees and paying ourselves back for some of the work we overspent on, we had $75k in the bank back in February of 2020.

Then, COVID-19 hit. The markets crashed. We are complete amateur investors, but somehow managed to put all of our $75,000 into funds and four weeks later sell it all for $90,000. Now we are looking at what's next. What would you suggest? All I read about is that the fix and flip market is dead. I could probably come across another deal in the next 6 months that would be worth buying into, but am I wasting my time when I should be in other types of real estate investing? I've been discouraged by finding that deals through the ways I was looking before are turning up nothing (REO sites, local auctions). I'm debating trying to do the "we pay cash for houses" campaigns and source our a local buyer. Looking at maybe picking up something to keep, but I can't do anywhere close to the numbers I've been doing in a rental or even VRBO market. Any advice for someone in my shoes?

[Casey W.]

Thanks for the reply.  I'm thinking you are right, and your advice is what I need to be doing.  I will say though, that I think it was less gambling and more waiting very long periods of time to find a good deal.  The mobile home was livable.  Really not bad at all.  The house I was improving during the redemption period is in a state where they would have to pay back the cost of any permanent (whether essential or not) improvements to the property if they redeemed it, with interest. I just think I got really lucky three times in finding the right deal, and now that I have more money than before I am missing out on greater opportunity to be making at least something off my available cash while I wait on miracle deals.