All Forum Posts by: Rick Wang

Hi @Joe Calderone  welcome to BP.  Now outside of BP web site, you can search for 'real estate' and limit within certain miles in your area in www.meetup.com and you'll find a ton of real estate meetup groups.  Many BPers go to those meetups.  Hope this helps.  Good luck to you.

Thank you for the welcome, @Sean Murray  

Hi BP members

Very glad to join the BP community.  I'm fairly new to the real estate market.  For the last couple of months, I've been reading books, articles, forums, watching videos, podcasts, attending webinars, and live foreclosure auctions.  I have learned a lot so far, I especially enjoy the real life experiences and discussions that the BP members share on the forums.  

As you can see in my profile picture, it feels like I've been slowly walking on the dock and now I've reached the end of it.  Though there's a lot more to learn on real estate investing, it may be time for me to jump in.  I remember a phrase in one of the books I recently read, it goes something like this, "Many opportunities missed by standing still."

I am looking into doing flips just outside of my area(Los Angeles), in the neighborhoods of Ontario, Fontana, Rialto and vicinity.  Anyone working in that area, I love to hear what's working and how the numbers are working out for you?  

As for me, my goal may be to take my time to find that good deal, or perhaps go below asking price (10-30%) to make the deal right for me.  I know that may require time.  If there's a local real estate agent that works in the area and has the patience to help me put the right numbers together, let's meet up.  There's a potential property I'm interested in, would like to see the inside.  

Thank you for spending your time reading this long post.

@Ashley Benning Great topic.  I've also had those same questions and this thread answered them for me.  I like your takeaways, they're solid.  I will be following them as well, especially #4.

@Anastasia Jordan I take it you speak from experience.  Thank you for sharing that.  What's the significance of the pulled permits?  Are you saying if those permits are not up to code, once you take over the property you would need to re-apply for those permits to get them approved, pay a fine, fix those that were not done correctly to get them up to code or worse yet, be forced to tear them down?  Thanks for your input in advance.

Rick

Thank you for the info, Cabri.  It's weird, I subscribed to an email alert in the L.A. county website on the tax sale, did not get any emails about this one....

Are you looking to participate in this tax sale?

Rick

Will, as I recall the starting bids were quite high so that means the properties were pretty much underwater, if that's how one determines it? since I'm a newbie at this, the final winning bid prices were all pretty much what you would see in the MLS to the other comparable prices. I suspect it'd be hard for someone to rehab it and make a decent profit. It's quite of a risk to pay that much and unable to see the inside of the properties.

auction.com foreclosure bidding comes up pretty often.  They also offer free foreclosure bidding seminars.  They'll teach you the whole bidding process and provide answers to all of your questions on foreclosure bidding.  There's a title person there that'll show you due diligence on what and how on searching titles, such as possible extra baggage that comes with these properties like liens and 2nd mortgages and etc.  Hope this helps.

I went to the Doubletree foreclosure by auction.com last week 6/8/17.  There were a total of only 7 to 8 properties that made it to auction, the rest of the scheduled ones (50+) to auction off were "postponed", with a handful "cancelled".  The room was full, all seats were taken, with a few ppl standing on the side.  From talking to the person sat next to me, she said there were the usual big bidders and some from investment groups.  Overall, less than 5% of the ppl in the room bid, and the properties were bid up so high they were about equal to market price.  For small investors like myself, slim to none is what I learned from attending my first L.A. foreclosure auction.

I am off to the San Bernardino auction tomorrow 6/13.  The general SB property value is lower than LA's so I am hoping the bidding will be lower as well.

BTW, there's free coffee and free auction seminars offered by auction.com to help new investors that want to learn the foreclosure auction process.  

Hope this helps.

Rick

I am new to real estate investment.  Glad to have found the BP site and now reading articles, threads and watching webinars to learn real estate investment.  Tax sale seems pretty interesting to me so I'm looking forward to this year's L.A. tax sale that's coming up in October.  Once the list is out, I'm going to do my research to narrow down to a handful of properties, then drive to the physical locations to have a looksy since I live in L.A.  It would be awesome for me to win just one single bid.

If anyone has done a L.A. tax sale I would love to hear your stories as well as what are some of the do's and don'ts, tips, strategies, what to watch for, to guide this newbie to win a bid.

Rick

@Dennis Lanni  Congrats on scooping up 2 properties.  I actually found BP while doing tax deed sale research.  If you could give a newbie some info. on how you decided to bid on these 2 props. (completing the due diligence on the props. such as physically seeing the props., how and where to run title research, other liens and etc.)  Thank you in advance for your time and sharing your knowledge.

Much appreciated,

Rick