All Forum Posts by: John Worley

What is everyone's take on these flat fee FSBO websites? Do you think they are worth it? What kind of features do you look for in a good site/service?

Any thoughts or comments would be appreicated.

Thanks.

Micheal, I have to disagree here. Real estate investing is a business and as a rule of thumb, you always want to keep your business and personal finances as separate as possible. NEVER, EVER, tie your personal home into an investment property. It is flat out too riskly. If something goes wrong with the investment property and you end up losing it than you could lose your primary home as well.

Froehlis, if you are serious about getting into real estate investing, then here are a few things I would suggest to get yourself ready (financing and otherwise).

1) Real Estate Investing is a business. Treat it as such.

2) Decide on a small local area near home to get started and decide how you want to invest (IE. Do you want to fix 'n flip?/Do you want to fix em up and rent them out?/Do you want to buy em and wholesale out to other investors?/Etc.)

3) Learn EVERYTHING you can about your chosen area before you start putting your money into any deals (IE What's the retail market like?/What's the rental market like?/Are the neighborhoods you're looking on the rise or decline econamically)

4)Evaluate your personal financial situation.
-How much cash do you have access to? Ideally I would recommend having enough cash on hand for 6 months payment reserves plus enough for your down payment and closing costs? Now I know most new investors won't have that kind of cash avaliable, so at bare minimum, I would say have enough cash for the 6 months payment reserves. The closing costs and down payment can be worked around, but at least give yourself 6 months worth of payments to either sale the property or get a renter into it.
-Clean Up Your Credit. Pay off your old collection accounts/Pay off your credit card balances, if you can. If not, then at least pay them down below 50%./Make sure that your current mortgages are paid ON TIME (this can kill more investment deals than you know.) For conventional financing, the lowest your middle credit score can be is around 620; 660 or higher will open up most programs for you.

5) Get your financing pre-approved.
Know how much you are approved for and what you payments will look like before you start shopping. This will speed up the financing process and make you look more professional to your potential sellers.

Hope this information helps and good luck in your new career.

Like others have said here, Interest Only Loans have their place in certain situations. For example, a landlord trying to max out their cash flow on a rental might chose an interest only loan. Or a rehabber who only plans to hold a property for a few months or maybe a year, might also chose to go interest only. It's all a matter of what you want to do with your particular loan.

One area that I would say to ALWAYS stay away from interest only loans is in regards to your primary home. Too many people have used IO loans to buy more house than they can afford and so when they get into financial trouble down the road and maybe try to refinance their way out of it, they find they don't have enough equity to do so. For your main home, I always say to go traditional, Fixed 15, 20, or 30 year mortgages are best.

Ok...so Mexicans have it rough. Their country is run by crooks and there are no jobs to be found. :violin: :violin:

Big deal!! I cannot feel sorry for the people of Mexico when we have people from all parts of the world coming here to escape things like genocide, torture, etc. and they chose to come here LEGALLY. The only reason that this invasion from Mexico is be allowed is because the politcians in Washington see a future voting block. And don't hand me this mess about Mexicans coming here and doing the jobs that Americans don't want to do. I see plenty of Americans everyday who are hard working, willing to do just about any job you put in front of them, if it means that they can take care of their famlies. From my own personal experience, I worked in construction for a few years after college and the vast majority of people I worked with were Mexicans (many I'm sure were here illegally). Of all the job sites I worked during those years, I found (with the rare exception) three things to be universally true about these Mexican workers.
1) They were always the last to get to work and the first to leave
2) Not a one of them could understand a word of English (nor did they seem to want to)
3) Their work was almost always done half a** and it was left to Americans (like myself) to go behind them and correct their work.

What do Mexicans provide this country? A pool of cheap labor for employers who want to pad their profits and a huge welfare liability. They want to immigrate to this country and become citizens of this country? Fine, I say more power to them. But not while they are here illegally. Kick them out and put them at the back of the line where they belong. Do not reward them for breaking the law or give them a pass simply because they are our neighbor.

Nice little discussion going here. I'm a little late finding it, but let's see what we have.

For the ones asking about how anyone could have voted for Bush, I'll say this. The man has screwed up on more than a few things (he's also done quite a few right in my opinion), but being that has it may, if I had to vote the last two elections over again, I'll still vote Bush into office. I mean come on, if Al Gore and John Kerry are the best that the Democrats can come up with, then I don't see any hope for them in the near future. I've been paying attention to politics for about 10 years now and I have yet to hear any good ideas from the Democratic side of the aisle. That is not to say that the Republicians have it all right either, but at least I can see an idea that makes a little sense from time to time.

Now for the whole civil liberties phone tapping BS. I'll be honest, I lost interest in this story almost as soon as I heard it for one reason. It's war-time and it's the government. Big Brother been looking over your shoulder for years. Anything from your credit card purchases to the liberty books you check out to the groceries you buy at the store are all easliy trackable. They need warrents for this information you say? You think that has always stopped them, most likely not. But unless you are ready to take up arms and force the government to shrink back down to where it should be, then there is not a whole lot of reason to get worked up about it. Does it make you leery of growing government power? Sure it does, but there are other things that down right scare me...IE. the government controlled monopoly of our children's education, the prospect of putting a socialist in the White House in 2008 (Clinton), and our government's eager support of the current Mexican invasion just to name a few.

With all that said I'll leave you with this thought:

"Get rid of the polticians and turn the government over the Mafia. The family makes their 10% and the country runs like a clock."

:D :D :D

asimbeck,
I am in a similar scenario as you, trying to learn the investment business. But instead of a real estate agent, I work in the mortgage side of the business (I'm a loan officer) and what works for me is biggerpo is talking about. I use real estate investors as one of my main niches. So while I do spend a lot of time and effort focusing on REI business I also have other mortgage client bases to keep my money flowing in. Having a personal goal of doing REI full time is great, in fact that's where I hope to spending a lot of my time in the near future, but keeping your money coming now with your sales commissions is just as important as learning the REI business. Don't limit your sources of income, because sooner or later it will come back to haunt you.

Aside from the regret factor, one of the biggest mistakes I see made by many new investors (it is also the same mistake that many primary homeowners make) is not planning the financing aspect of their deal. They don't get their financing pre-approved so they don't have any idea of what they can afford to buy or even what their options are. Then they go out and find a house that they really can't afford yet and they get into trouble trying to pay for the loan.

My advice for newbies:
-Do your homework (get to know the markets you want to buy in; know what you want to buy and why)

-Put a good team of professionals together to work with
-Straighten out your finances and get your financing pre-approved before you buy.

I use MaxEmail. By far the best internet fax service I've found. $24 per year gets you 500 inbound pages a month and outbound pages are $.10/minute and no set up fee. Faxes come through real clear (as far as faxes go anyway) and I've never had a problem with down time. I tried Efax and MyFax, but they ended up being to pricely and in the case of Myfax, unrealiable.

The way I define a deed restriction is that they are stips attached to the property deed (whether it's a SFR, multi family, subdivision, etc) that restrict what can be done to the property. The deed restrication may put limits on what use the property can be put to, how much the property can be sold for, etc. The best example of a deed restrication that I could give you is for current Fannie Mae foreclosures. These properties have a deed restrication that states that, for a period of one year from the date of close, you cannot sell the property for more than 120% of what you originally paid for it.

Yeah that is true, but you and I both know that only a handful of people who get the IO products are disciplined enough to make more than the min. interest payments. This is why so many people get into trouble with them. I guess the real decision that Rvalles needs to make is whether or not he is discipilined enough to either make some payment to prinicipal every month or make sure he follows an exit plan to make sure that he is rid of the property before the IO period is up. :D