All Forum Posts by: Paul Farley

I have been torn on selling or renting for some time. I am leaning towards selling it so I can break off joint ownership with my sister.

So in this regard, taking out equity from the home is worth the debt? I have been wondering if this sort of debt is worth it to increase the homes value. The repairs really need done. The windows and siding are original to the home, I believe, so 60+ years old.

Then if I sold it, would it be best to use some of the money from it for a new deposit on a home. Then the rest for the REI?

Thanks

@Matt Motil

What do you teach at the U of Akron? That would be great to meet up sometime. Akron is only about a half an hour from me. I definitely need to broaden my network in this area, especially locally.

The only disadvantage with my mom's home is I moved back into it, so if I sold it I would need the finances to get myself a home. 

Is there anything you would add in my current plan? I will be visiting this site much more frequently to soak up any bit of knowledge I can get.

Thanks again!

Hi everyone,

My name is Paul and I am fairly new to this site. I discovered it looking for an insurance question and then proceeded to ask about becoming a Real Estate Agent. Since then the idea to go into Real Estate has really been tapping me on the shoulder. 

To get a little personal:

For the last 1-2 years I went into a somewhat depression, gained a bunch of weight and just sat on my couch after work. Well that has ended and I am back to my normal self. I have set goals for myself in the past and I have yet to land on any of them and I am tired of it. I have a girlfriend that I cannot even afford a ring for and a 2 year old daughter that I want to be able to do more for. I haven't been on a vacation in 2 years and I live pay check to pay check and some times don't even have enough after that.

For some reason Real Estate has always interested me. I started seeing a lot more interest when I started at my current job. We do marketing for Real Estate agents, brokers, mtg companies, etc. So on a daily basis I speak to them all of the time and some advise I received on here the last time was to contact them and ask them for advise. I did that, I contacted about 10 of them and some I had phone conversations with. They were very helpful and put a lot of perspective into my eyes. I have a friend who became a Real Estate agent in my area and I talk with him regularly and he is doing great.

Now, to get into some more private information, but useful information.

My mother passes away a year and a half ago and myself and my sister inherited her home. We are in the last stages of probate now, so it should be in our name soon. We have been paying the mortgage since then and we only have about $7,500 left on it. The house is worth about $70,000 - $75,000 as is, but with new siding and windows I would see that jump to about $95,000 (the house next door sold last year for $95,000 and it has a 1 car garage compared to my 2 and my house has a breaseway and much larger driveway, plus there home had an older roof and about 15 year old windows/siding, but it had a fully furnished basement). I am uncertain whether I want to sell the home after I pay it off, rent it, or stay in it for a little while. My girlfriend hates living there anymore because of living with my sister and her two dogs. I know it would be best to live there for a little while longer after it is paid off because not having any mortgage debt would be great. So I am stuck between a rock and hard place with this.

Other than that, I have a small credit card that I am working on paying off. Then I have the dreaded student loan debt.

That is all the debt I have, but I had troubles with my student loan debt, like many others and it messed up my credit really bad. I have really been working on fixing it the last year and a half and I have increased it over 100 points. I have other things that should be falling off soon too. However, my credit still is bad, lower 600 score. 

I went to school for marketing and only have 60 credit hours, so I am 2-3 years from graduating. I am contemplating going back next fall, but not sure.

In the past year I have taught myself coding, so I try everyone in a while to get side work doing that, but without a name or portfolio it is difficult, but I have started creating a Real Estate website that I think would do VERY VERY well with Real Estate and would have the potential to compete with Zillow/Realtor.com , but I do not have the skills to create everything needed, so that thought is on hold, probably for a decent amount of time.

Now that I have given my background. I really want to start doing something with my life and I believe this is it. My first step is taking care of myself. I started losing the weight I have gained and have lost 22 lbs, I still want to lose quite a bit more. I am getting a gym membership tonight to help with this cause. Once I have got to my target weight, or close to it, I will be signing up to go to a local college to obtain my Real Estate license. Then I will join a brokerage and try to succeed in that.

What I really want to do is be an investor though and with my credit and lack of income coming in, there is no way I can do it.

So I guess my questions would be is:

1. Does my plan sound like I am going in the right direction. Is there anything I should change and/or add in?

2. Is it possible to invest in Real Estate with my situation? 

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to give my background to help and hopefully get some great insight because I have no other means of getting it.

Thanks!

Thanks @J Scott

You would think smaller brokerages would offer more support, as they would have less agents to worry about. Then those lesser amount of agents mean more,

Thanks for the great help @David Hunter and @J Scott Hamilton ! 

When you say this:

Then, you'll have your split with the broker. That could be anywhere from 50% to 90% or more. That's something you'll need to work out with your brokerage.

Is that 50-90% I would get or they would get? I couldn't see the brokerage getting more than half? 

Is the normal commission before brokerage splits 3%, factoring in the buyer/seller splits?

Thank you for this! These are some great questions to ask.

What is the normal starting split rate? I am not sure on what any of these figures should be.

I called the buddy of mine who has been in Real Estate now for almost two years. The first years he only did leases though. He said that he has sold 12 homes now in that year. I know this has to be much greater than the normal average start. 

He was with a smaller brokerage, but in the last week he has had several interviews with larger firms because he wants the additional marketing and training. He said he did not get any with the past brokerage.

Do you all agree that it would be better for me to start at a larger firm? 

So, I started on this right away. I contacted a good 10 Realtors/brokers that I have a pretty good business relationship, they were glad to help and offer their advise. I have a call setup today with one of them to hear some advise she has. 

A lot of the advise I am getting is to not be afraid to market myself and spend they money to do so. The most often mentioned comment is that the first year or two is tough, but if I am aware of that and do my due diligence that I will do well.

Some have even offered to set me up with brokers of their establishment in my area. Though with good searches, I can see they aren't in my area.

I still have a question about brokerages. Everyone is saying that the first year or two is hard. I'm sure most of that is because connections and awareness has not been created yet that I would be a Realtor. Wouldn't a larger brokerage have more power to get me clients in that new starting period?

What is the good and bad about larger brokerages? 

-Is there more fees that come out of commissions?

-Better marketing materials?

-More listings?

etc

I could really use some guidance in this regard. A friend of mine that I mentioned in this post earlier posted last night on Facebook that he had a new listing and how excited he was. It seems like he is really fighting to get an listings, so if there is a way to reduce this problem a bit, I am sure I would do quite well.

Thanks!

 Definitely! This is the one aspect I am pretty familiar with. The company I work for is a retention/loyalty marketing company, so I work with Realtors/Brokers all day helping them connect with their customers and building referrals from it.

Thanks for the input!