All Forum Posts by: Richard Gaston

I hate it when I get an invite to a Webinar hoping to learn something new, and sometimes I get lucky, then I get hit by a ticket price in order to continue learning. I was just watching Kent Clothier on Finding Motivated Sellers, which was good, in fact it was on a subject I just asked a question here about. He even offered a program to even help find these elusive people, then I got hit with the price tag, I got sticker shock. $995 for this system. Has anyone dealt with Kent Clothier? If I had the money that some investors has to start their deals I would've done it but I don't. I even sent a message telling him that, knowing that the only people who reads it are the Sales Reps and it most likely will get tossed into the circle bin. Sometimes it does get frustrating, I am trying to learn new techniques in order to succeed (that is why I am here, asking questions and posting what little I do know to help others). Thank you for letting me be a member here and I hope I am not to much of a bother to anyone when I ask a lot of questions.

I am not sure about Unlawful Detainer, but I do know Landlord/Tenent Laws which is about the same in all States, unless a State/City/Township/County has stricter Laws. But under the Landlord Tenent Laws if a Security Deposit has been paid and if a Tenent has not paid his or her rent then the Security Deposit can be voided and be used to vacate the tenent under the Law including any and all legal actions, Court Costs can be added on as well as Attorney Fees if it stipulates as such in the Lease Agreement. I am not sure if that answers your question about Unlawful Detainer but I am sure you can ask a Real Estate Attorney who is familar with Landlord Laws.

Personally I listen to the Realtor, do flips. If you can the get the right prices and if the Realtor has worked with RE Investors you can make a decent profit margin that will help you with what you want. Rentals are great for passive income and that is what I am planning on doing, down the road. There are others that will tell you to Wholesale as well, money is not that great but its still a good income you just make more if you fix and flip but that does take a lot of work and a good team to work with you. Now me personally I don't mind getting my hands dirty but I know what I can and can not do, like for instance I can not do electrical (I know enough not to touch the live wire, its shocking). See what your strong points are if you don't mind doing the work yourself and see what your weak points are that is where you may want to consider hiring a General Contractor. But its really your choice :) I just thought I might put my 2cents in :)

Howdy, I hope I am not a stick in the mud BUT after reading this post I like to say something and I hope I am not out of line here.

Quite a few years back, waaaayyyy before I even got my feet wet in Real Estate, I remember this one deal I was offered. Your deal somewhat reminded me of it (ok I am an old fart what can I say, lol). I worked at an Auto Parts Store making decent money, living in a Trailer House. I got to talking to this one Home Owner, he made me an offer on not one but two houses next door to each other. One was in fair condition but the other was burned out and gutted. He made me an offer which for me was affordable, at first. A very low down payment (which I could afford at the time) and great monthly payments again I could afford it, then he included balloon payments, then another balloon payment to pay off the the house, in total it would take me 10 years to pay off the private mortgage. All I had to do is fix up the second house and then rent it out, he was glorifying that the rent would pay off the mortgage but after he gave me the figures and after I saw how much work was involved, for me it wasn't rocket science I figured the guy was giving me a ride. I would still need to revamp the first house as well in order for me to live in it, that quickly added up and without doing any comps I figured I would be taking a big loss before I even see any profits and that was without asking anyone if it was a good deal or not. For me it wasn't a good deal, so I turned it down.

Like the other guys here have said, check around see what the other properties are selling at, talk to a Realtor to see what they say, get some comps, see what the fair rental market is in that area then lease one side out while living in the other side. Look at the numbers to make sure you are not paying more then what he is offering (which was the case with me, after I did the math, the houses were being sold for way more then what he was telling me). There are ways to get creative, look at all options before you make the purchase.

oh btw, I am sorry if most of my posts are a bit wordy I try to explain as much as I can. And I am sure if you look at the time stamp you will see some of my posts are really late at night. Thats because my time schedule is all messed up, I work Graveyard Shifts at the store where I work at. As much as I like to BUY the books and becoming a premium member, I am classified as Low Income. I make 10 cents above minimum wage for this State which sounds a lot if you live in a State where minimum wage is a bit lower (or a lot) buy my pay is $9.45 an hour and I work 32 hours a week. With all the deductions coming off my Gross Pay I am lucky if I bring home a bit over $225 a week, then I have to pay my bills, support my family etc. After all said and done I am lucky if I have a buck to my name. Main reason why I have decided to get back into RE Investments. I know I can make a decent living at it. So I am trying to get as much information as I can and to see if I can network as much as I can without making the mistake of going to one of those Guru's who claim fast bucks for little work, uh uh I know there is a lot of work and I am able and willing.

Left that last part blank because its all encompassing. I am trying to build a good team but I do not know how to do the search. I have posted in other posts that I have basically done this before, but when I did it everything was basically already in place. I found a Mortgage Broker who was really flexable and got me No Doc Loans, and I had wholesalers who sold me the houses. Lawyer was provided my the Broker and the Wholesalers as well as everything else. I basically did not need to build up a team. I was also a Real Estate Agent for Long and Foster Realtors in Maryland, one of the most prestigous RE firms on the East Coast. Now, no RE License so I need an Agent that works for or has worked with Real Estate Investors, and a Contractor with crew who specializes in almost everything, I am also going to do some of the work, I have some skills I can put on the table such as Gyping, Decking, Drywall and Painting (old school style, no paint gun lol). Now I am sure if I get a good Real Estate Agent they already have an attorney they use for the closings as well as the other parts of the team. My main question is how do I do a search and what questiosn do I need to ask without sounding stupid lol...

Man I am really old school. Whatever happen to the day when the RE Investor who dealt with Wholesalers actually got what was stated. My story on that is a good one though, I dealt with a couple of wholesalers (partnership) who actually gave me what was stated with the exception of a few properties they were trying to sell me, at that time I had already aquired quite a few properties and had a good stream of passive income coming in, enough to pay the mortgages. Back then we had NoDoc Loans. Now if you were looking at the paper it would look like if I sold these houses I would at least break even after closing, but that was on paper. Without repeating myself I explained that in another blog, but to make a long story short these guys were buying properties in Lots (I am assuming they were HUD Foreclosures) and they did not inspect these last few houses that they wanted me to buy. They told me they were basically minor fixer uppers and it may cost at least $5k to fix them (mostly cosmetic). They took me out to the houses, they were Row Houses (Baltmore, MD) and from what I saw it looked more like I needed to tear down the whole street in order to fix these properties, yes they were that bad. Even the neighborhood looked bad, and I took a rough guess on how much it would actually cost me, more like $50k per house (there were 5 of them) the houses were at Fair Market Value worth about $160,000 per unit but in an area where everyone was paying a low ball of $85,000 per house and living in them, yes it was that kind of neighborhood. After quickly calculating on what I needed in order to fix these houses up, and thats from looking at the outside, I didn't even bother going into these places I turned the deal down, it was one of those "if its to good to be true" type of deal..After that these guys never contacted me again. Sigh oh well lol...

I am looking for RE Investors that wholesale in Lakewood, WA. Someone who wishes to build a working relationship as well as can show me the ins and outs of RE Investments (again). I am a bit old school in the ways of RE Investments and I really need to learn the new ways after all the changes in Real Estate and how it effects the RE Investors. Please and Thank you.

@Bradon Turner Thanks mate I will do that. You should see my inbox at both of my email accounts (GMail and Hotmail). I am getting a lot of emails from a lot of REI Gurus, quite a few for Apartments. Fix and Flips as well as Wholesaleing are two of the ones I am really looking into, rentals and apartments even though they may be a good source of long term income are ones I am not to fond of, for the simple reasons, I live in an Apartment Complex right now, been here for 13 years straight, with the exception of another tenent that lives here as well, we are one of the oldest tenents here, and I am not talking about our ages lol. Management here treat us like Kings/Queens here because of how long we lived here. We act like we own this place (sometimes lol) and because of that we help to keep our community clean. Its the other tenents that don't really care. And that is what I am seeing, the mess they or their kids make and how much Maintance has to work to clean it all up, and the way they treat their Apartments. Everyone has the attitude that hey its not mine so why should I take care of it attitude, because of that, is one of the reasons I really don't want to do Rentals. Later I might do it once I get this business going but I will make sure I have a good management team that actually do background checks on Prospective Tenents, not the kind that says they do then rent just to keep the occupancy/vacancy ratio down.

@Dmitriy Fomichenko Thanks mate, I was wondering about that. Its just like my art group that I am a member at :)