Hello from Houston, TX

[Kelly Whitley]

I'm a 38 year old married man who lives in Spring, TX.  I've been interested in real estate investing for about the past 10 years, but have never really had the gumption to metaphorically jump off the boat to see if I could swim or not.

I don't have much capital, but have excellent credit and almost no debt.

I think the route that I want to take is to buy and rent properties slowly over time, then use that income to pay off those loans, but am not opposed to doing some quick flipping if the diamond in the rough happens to present itself.

I don't have a realtor's license nor do I have any close friends with one (yet).  I'm wondering if this will be a hindrance?  Should I start taking steps to obtain my license?  Also, I'm wondering what others are using to find properties.  Years ago, I read quite a bit about putting up bullet signs and doing short sales, but that honestly didn't appeal to me.  Ideally, like many articles have stated, I want to find a property that needs a little TLC (I could even handle alot of TLC as I'm pretty handy and have good relationships w/ contractors) buy it, and rent it out to good people that need a place to live.

Can anyone tell me a good resource for finding these properties?  IS Har.com all there is for Houston?

Thanks for taking the time to read and I look forward to posting, reading, and sharing with everyone here.

[Stanley Okazaki]

@Kelly Whitley Welcome! I would highly suggest getting your license. I can't list the number of advantages that come with having your license because there are so many.

Although you can find deals on HAR those are typically snatched up buy more experienced investors that can have an all cash contract in within hours. If you're looking for buy & hold properties you'll have a much better chance at picking up a property from HAR because you can probably pay a little more for a property than an investor that's just looking for a quick turn around. 

Other places you can find deals are wholesalers but beware! I've been pitched hundreds of deals from wholesalers in the last 6 months and only about 6 of them had any potential. Wholesalers usually work with what they call their "top 5". Pretty much a small group of investors that get pitched the deal before anyone else. Usually if it's a good deal these "top 5" pick it up right away which is probably why most of the deals that were brought to me weren't good. 

You can pick up a list of delinquent tax payers from the montgomery county recorder's office. The list costs about 10$ and includes the name & addresses of all homeowners that are delinquent on their taxes ( motivated sellers).

You can also google "property info montgomery county tx" this is where you can get access to all notices ( divorce,probate,deed in lieu,state tax lien, etc.) -only for montgomery county.

Hope I helped....