All Forum Posts by: Allen Clark

This seems to be more about personal finance than real estate. I'd suggest reading a book by someone like Dave Ramsey so you can figure out how to get your financial house in order. Having a high income is great and, I think, mandatory for you right now. Protect that. Stop helping your adult children. They'll be fine and they need to stand on their own. Attack your credit card debt then work on savings then look at investing. I'm way to financially conservative to even consider investing if I had $50k in credit card debt!

I'd focus on making more money. Why are you only bringing in $20k per year? Is it time to invest in education that will move you to a more lucrative line of business. Once you make more then you can save more then you can invest more. 

A couple things here. First, as many have said, pay off the credit cards. The second, which I think is equally important, is to move out of your parents house. You want to be a real estate investor so you have to factor in the cost of living into the equation. That means putting a roof over your head and paying the associated costs. Pay off your debt, move out, save up and then get going!!

I do quartz in my rental kitchens. Looks nice, durable, doesn't burn etc. 

Posts like these confuse me. You have no capital and you're working full time. Working is good, very good. Why not focus on your full time job, make good money, and start saving?Then when you have some savings to invest you can start to do that over the coming years. You live pretty near Tacoma and I hear that is a good market for REI. So maybe you can find a few rehab deals to get involved with. I'm no pro and others here know a heck of a lot more than me but it seems that in order to be an investor you need some capital to invest.

I think there is no short cut here. In order to become an investor you need to have capital to invest. In order to have capital you need to make money and then save. This takes time. If you're making $10/hr then you may need to invest in yourself. Education is a good path to higher paying work. At your current wage, I think it would be very hard to save and have enough to invest meaningfully. 

Why not just have the lease effective from the 3rd? You can start a lease any day of the month. I always let the tenant set the start date as I do not really care. Greater flexibility in lease terms means I can charge a premium.

Yep, go to school. Invest in yourself. I've been in high tech for 20+ years. Everything from test to marketing to ops to sales to business development. It's a great career, lots of fun, and pays well. By living frugally I've been able to save money and now in my 40s have started with REI. Making a good salary makes my real estate hobby much easier.

In another thread @Steve Vaughan mentioned a few strategies on how to get an owner to consider a low offer. I have a house in Seattle, Washington that I would like to buy but when I ran the numbers they just do not work. They want $750k and I could only get the deal to work at $625k so I walked. I told them I'm an investor and asked if I should write an offer at $625k and they said no. I figure it'll sit for quite some time until they get more realistic with their pricing. My question is how can I help them get there quicker and be there if they get to $625k?

Steve had suggested the following for another user (at a different price point):

1) Cash out through a loan. Say $326,457, closing in 60 days.

2) Seller-carry with $x down at market rates, $X per month headache-free cashflow $342,187 closing in 21 days.

3) Master lease with option to buy, 30 or 60 month term, $x per month, taking care of management and first $300 of repair expenses: $351,324, closing in 14 days.

I do not understand the mechanics of how #2 or #3 would work. Can someone give me a little more detail? 

If you are running a business then you might want to follow all the associated laws. Seems pretty important to me. Things like obtaining permits, passing inspections, paying your taxes (although as little as legally possible is smart), living up to the agreements you sign show your character as a business person. In the US and Canada this is just smart business sense.