All Forum Posts by: Ryan Craig

It is like any other Mid to large towns it has B areas and C- to D areas, many of the surrounding towns are pretty low income so the outskirts are not the best.Shop wisely and scout the areas before you buy. 

Welcome to BP. If you are looking to buy a home for little or no money down I would recommend reading "The Book on Investing in Real Estate with Little and No money Down" by Brandon Turner. You can buy it here on BP in the Education, then Books section.

http://get.biggerpockets.com/nomoneydown/

I would do a minimum of 20%. As @Jared S. said you avoid PMI, but you also have instant equity in case you need to sale for any reason.

@Flora Talmazan Many areas of the country have homes for under 50k that will cash flow nicely. Mid West, South, North East to name a few. I wouldn't recommend going to areas you are unfamiliar with to start. You definitely want to do your homework on what ever area you decide. If I were you I would look in Jersey and Pennsylvania to get an idea as you could go to both them on the weekend to check out potential homes to buy. 

@Chris Melear I prefer to look at the recent sales myself and see what my competition is. Also, seeing as your agent sees a bunch of homes every month they should be a good person to seek out advice from. If all the competition is remodeled to a certain standard then you know what you need to do, if not and everything is outdated ask your realtor for advice.

Do you have any skill in picking out counter tops, cabinets,tile etc?

@Robart Luis Do you have a 9-5 job? Do you already have money in savings? Easiest thing to do is cut your expenses to get started, no going out to eat, no unnecessary purchases. Save every penny you can until you have adequate down payment and an emergency fund. 

@William Alexander Is this a statement or a question? What is your plan to make this happen?

For a rental I would keep it as is. 

@Sydney Cash I would recommend anything and everything by Robert Kiyosaki, Most of the BP books you can find in the Book store. Also Gary Keller has written a couple good ones. Any other books on RE would depend on your strategy as most get pretty specific towards multi, apartments. SF etc. 

As far as financial literacy I like Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki and Warren Buffet. Also check out "The Millionaire Next Door" cant remember the author but its an interesting read.

@Gil Swenson My best advice is to continue analyzing deals, go to a local REI meet up with a solid deal in hand and see if you can find someone willing to mentor you through the deal for a split. It's hard to find someone willing to mentor you for nothing, plus this strategy shows you are serious.