All Forum Posts by: Greg Scott

Ryan:

The premier real estate education and mentoring group in the country is about 10 minutes from your house.  I fly in from Detroit to take classes there.  It is located in Las Colinas.  Their basic 1-year membership can answer all these questions and give you unlimited access to mentors.   It is the best value in real estate education, at just a few hundred bucks.

Check out Lifestyles Unlimited. Their HQ is in Houston, but they have a huge office in Las Colinas.

If you have no real estate investing experience but you have a lot of cash and wanted to become a lender, it might be the best money you ever spent.   

There are many "gurus" that peddle junk, so you have to do your homework and verify it is a good education.  But, just because it is $10K, doesn't mean it's bad.  

I once spent $10K on getting educated.  My one regret was I hadn't done it years earlier!

Not a good idea.

  1) It's not your money.  You should not do anything to jeopardize it.

  2) You may be breaking the law, depending on your municipality.

  3) Even if you aren't breaking the law, if you get in a court battle with a tenant, a judge may want to see you have those funds set aside.

Don't do it.

I fully support this.  They should be revoked nationally.

@Harry Metzinger

Sorry, I flipped that in my head. I though you were paying damages for backing out, not the seller.  That makes more sense.   But can you get blood out of a turnip?  

They key is do not sell a property on behalf of someone else, because then you are acting as a broker / agent.   

If you own the house, you have a right to sell it yourself.  If you own a contract to buy a house, you have the right to sell the contract.

@Harry Metzinger

Seems like a decent deal.  There are some things I like here and things I don't like.

Like

 - 14 day contingency for inspections.  That should give you plenty of time to validate your rehab numbers

 - Long closing period

Don't like

 - Why offer so much for liquidated damages?   Usually just the earnest money is at risk.   You are putting a lot more at risk

 - NEVER rehab a property you don't own.  Not only are their liability concerns, if the seller backs out for some reason, you may litigate, but the improvements to the house are theirs.

If you are going for a double close anyway, I wouldn't worry about the FHA side. There is enough meat in this deal that even if you have to get bridge financing to cover a few weeks of ownership, you are still making money on the back end.

Good luck!

If you don't have credit, you will have trouble getting a loan either way. If you don't live in the house, technically FHA could come after you for misrepesenting yourself. (Not sure if they try to enforce that.)

With the info you have provided, I would go with Option 1 and have your mom teach you  the business.   Just don't blame her if you experience a few bumps in the road after purchase.  Suck it up and handle it.  In the long run you will be fine.

For a lot less time you could educate yourself on how to do deals correctly so that you are not violating the law.  Then you can focus your remaining energies on actually building the business.

@Chris Brown

Avoid condos as an investor, they generally don't return as well as single family rentals.

Avoid condos if you want to get into short-term rentals. Your HOA will probably be fighting you every day to stop because nobody wants to live in a condo next to an AirBNB rental.

Your plan seems sound if you choose to buy a single family rental.  However, be aware that short-term rentals have a lot of moving parts and require constant care and feeding.  You may want to start with long-term rentals and get your feet wet that way first.  Long-term rentals are probably the least time-intensive.

Before buying, I recommend you get a mentor to help you through the bumps in the road