hi chad. i understand where you are coming from. starting out in flipping houses is hard. everyday you read about people like donald trump and how they bought their next great deal for millions of dollars. the only thing you can derive from that is " it takes money to make money". that statement is true enough, but it isn't the whole answer. no one ever got anywhere by giving up, is one of my favorite quotes. having good credit and access to money is almost essential to investing in real estate. what you need to do is stop worrying about where you are in life and start thinking about how you can get where you want to be in life. i have actually bought a house for $500 once. in fact, i have purchased several houses over the last 11 years here in buffalo, ny and the most i have paid for one was $4100. most of what i buy are tax sale houses, i. e., houses that have been foreclosed on by local tax authorities for lack of paying property taxes. granted, most of these houses are in such a state of disrepair that they probably should be burned down and started over, but buying this way teaches you how to become one hell of a great handyman. start getting your credit in order. you hear a lot about these " credit repair" companies all around. the truth is, THEY CANNOT DO ANYTHING FOR YOU THAT YOU CANNOT DO FOR YOURSELF. go to annualcreditreport.com and get a free copy of your credit report from all 3 agencies. by law, you are entitled to a free report each year from each company. on annualcreditreport.com, you can dispute every negative thing you see. thats how these credit repair places do it. they go on here and dispute anything that looks negative. by law, the credit agency has to follow up on your dispute to any and all creditors that you dispute. these creditors have 30 days to respond back to the agency as to whether or not this report is accurate. if they fail to answer back in 30 days, then that part of the report is removed from your report, just as if it never existed. hence, your credit score goes up and you become more desirable to lenders. it really is that simple. next, start paying your bills on time. this will account for 35% of your overall credit score. when that number comes up, you will have a much better chance at getting lenders to give you the money to finance your way in real estate investing.
start small like i did. go to any tax authority you can find near you. ask if they have a list of houses in your area that are in a state of disrepair. ask what they do with houses that have been foreclosed on for back taxes. see how cheap you can get these. its kind of fun " making a deal happen" as opposed to sitting around and waiting for things to get better. good luck to you and please ask me for help when you need it.
