Hello, I’m brand new to this page and was needing some advise from the pro’s. Looking to get into Property Investing and know enough to know I don’t know sh*t.
Here's a little on my background. I was a General Contractor back in the 00's Specializing in Handyman type and small construction (Kitchen and Bathroom's, Fences and Decks). I also had an account with HUD homes where I would go into Repossessed homes and cleaned them out to prepare them for sale on the open market. That made me realize I wanted to get into real estate investment. These types of houses were CASH only, but there was LOTS of money to be made in them. I'm not afraid of a good project and am pretty good at estimating the costs involved. I rode the market till it crashed on 2008 and when people stopped using their houses as ATM machines, my business dried up quick. Having a pregnant wife and a failed business, I went back to Auto Sales which I did before I was a GC.
Currently I’m in the banking side of the Automotive industry working for a captive lender as a dealer rep. I making a 6 figure salary which allows the wife to stay home and raise the kids. I’m currently in the process of paying off a couple of fatty credit cards and saving up some cash to get into this business. Starting out by flipping houses and eventually getting into rentals and passive income properties eventually allowing me to leave my 9-5 job.
Here’s the start of the Idea:
locate and buy flip houses where I can do the work on myself and also new build construction. I have an eye at locating the REO properties and have found a few over the last few years in my neighborhood. Also, New Construction is HOT in my market and feel very confident I can manage a project like that with my background. I currently live in the Phoenix Arizona market and we're seeing some major growth here in the past 4 years. I have ZERO clue how to access capital other than a convectional Mortgage and those REO properties are typically CASH ONLY, this is a MAJOR problem. I have ran into Hard Money loan guys, but their 14/4 (interest/origination fee) ratios are nothing more than predatory if you ask me. I'm pretty savvy with loans, since thats what I'm doing currently and also have Mortgage background. I know I can lose my butt quick with reckless loans like that, the whole point is to make money after all, not pay it all in interest to a loan shark. Plus I'll be doing these projects on the evening and weekends so I can't flip them as fast as I could if I was doing it full time, another problem. Since I have that debt and hold the only income for my family, I currently don't make enough to carry two mortgages till those are paid off. At least I don't think so.. I have some equity in my home currently ($80K), but would like to not tap into that if at all possible. At least till I know what the hell I'm doing, I don't want to lose it.. :)
I’m researching hard right now while I’m saving and paying off debt and would LOVE some tips/ideas from the pros. Maybe someone was in my situation and has some ideas, I’m currently not thinking about. Sorry for the long post, I wanted to paint the exact picture to get the best information possible…
