All Forum Posts by: Ryan Webber

Welcome to the forum, Paul.

If you are serious about learning to invest, then you came to the right place. Reading through some of the past postings can really help with understanding this whole real estate game. If you have any questions on the way, there is always a multitude of people here waiting to help.

I am going to have to agree with both r2d2 and fireman. I think its important to have a professional appearance with a website, a logo, professional business cards, etc, but your deals are going to come from making offers. If you are finding yourself spending 80% of your time on the 20% issues, as r2d2 put it, then you won't be making money at this. Making offers is where the money is made in this business, so make sure you are spending 80% of your time on that.

Its easy for new investors to dance around putting their name to a contract because they feel like they need to take care of all the other things first. The problem with getting every duck in a row before you jump in is that 9 times out of 10, you won't ever jump in. You can always find something else that "needs" to be taken care of before you REALLY get started. I would recommend setting goals/timeline for setting up your business and doing your initial research on investing and then stick to it.

Most importantly I would recommend setting a dated goal for when you will buy your first property by. The first is always the hardest, and you need to get over that hump if you are truly serious about investing.

I normally have 3 or 4 at any time on HUD's Section 8. I think right now I only have 1. The tenants vary. Most of the time you will be dealing with someone who is not the most responsible type of person, but its nice getting the check from HUD or rather in Amarillo it comes from the city housing department.

Oh yeah, welcome to the forum, Mike. We're glad you're here.

Mike, I am not sure exactly what you are referring to as "purchase options". Could you clarify what you mean by that?

How much time you spend on it. Some projects/investments will require more of your time/attention/management than others.

lenderles, I couldn't pull up the link you posted. I couldn't find anything on Georgia law searches, but I don't think I am looking in the right place. I emailed the investor that I know does double closings in Atlanta to find out what he knows about it.

I am not sure how you are connecting a double closing with a predatory lending practice. It really has nothing to do with the lender. I am curious what exactly are you referring to as a "double closing" and why do you think it is illegal?

Well BSM, there are more factors to investing than just money. Another huge factor is time allocation.

Wholesaling for example, normally requires less money to get started than let's say rehabbing, but it will require much more upfront time allocation.

I would say the most difficult thing when you have no money, is to find ways to make money with no money. You have to rely on your work ethic more so in beating the streets and finding deals and not so much on your bank roll. Your investment options are more limited with little capital and require more time.

Now when you do have money to invest options open up. The issue becomes more where and what to invest in. You begin to have to weigh risk/reward factor on multiple different types of investing. With a large amount of capital, one could invest in commercial and/or apartments, hard money lending, development deals, or large rehab projects. Someone has to determine their desired rate of return versus risk factor and not forget about time allocation.

Nightowl, there are several strategies to make money in real estate with little or no money out of your pocket. Wholesaling, subject to's, lease optioning, and seller financing are a couple I can think of off the top of my head that have some strong possibilities. There are also ways to get creative in financing that can get you into a property for little or no money out of your pocket, which I am sure Nothing Down will discuss.

I am personally biased to recommend wholesaling to a new investor with little starting capital. In my opinion it provides the lowest risk for the highest return that I have seen in real estate. It does require a strong ambition level and work ethic, but it can pay very well.

Actually one of my partners in my wholesaling company is married to a very conservative man who is not personally interested in real estate at all. She wanted to get involved with real estate but had to minimize her risk involvement because her husband's well paying government job did credit checks every year. If something went wrong financially, he could and probably would lose his job. She used very little money to start finding properties to wholesale and completely minimized her risks by focusing on assignments of contracts. If she couldn't assign it, she would walk from the deal through a contingency in the contract (she never had to walk, that's one of the reasons why we brought her on board). On a side note when she started her wholesaling business she also had 2 year old triplets and was a stay at home mom. Don't get me wrong she is extremely ambitious and well motivated (I would actually describe her as a tiger/pit bull) but my point is that she started with low capital and worked through an avenue with low risk and still made a very respectable income doing it.

All Cash, you seem to have a very conservative perspective on investing. I started investing with very little to my name, no 401K, no personal mortgage, and WITH credit card debt. I started investing with my tax return because I had no savings. Now I did understand that becoming more financially responsible and living below my means was absolutely necessary to be successful in real estate or in business in general, but I saw real estate investing as my way to break through my income ceiling. In the beginning of my investing career, I had to take some proportionally large risks to start moving forward financially.

I like to play poker occasionally, and I relate it to a good general poker strategy. When you are the short stack (not many chips) at the table, you have to be overly aggressive and take some risks if you are going to grow your chips. Now you calculate those risks. You analyze the other players, you calculate the size of the pot, you factor the chances of making your hand, you factor in 15 different things, but when you gauge your risk tolerance it needs to be HIGHER than normal if you are going to overcome your low funds. Now when you are the big stack (lots of chips) at the table, being more conservative is always a more solid strategy. You factor all the same things but when it comes to your risk tolerance it needs to be LOWER than normal.

Initially in my investing career I had a strong tolerance for risk. I took some big risks, and honestly some of them almost took me down. But instead of destroying my business, by overcoming and working through those extremely challenging and financially risky situations, my business was catapulted to a whole new level in a relatively short amount of time. Now that I have established my business at this level my risk tolerance has dramatically decreased. Not that I don't still take financial risks, but proportionally to the size of my business none of them are going to jeopardize my business' ability to grow and sustain itself.

For some people, real estate investing may be the only chance they have to get ahead. Investing can offer someone the opportunity to make large amounts of money with relatively little experience or education. Now developing increased financial responsibility with what they currently have and with what they will have, will insure that this increased income will not leave just as quickly as it came, but I am just not sure that topping out a 401K or paying off all your debts is the most efficient and effective way for everyone to get ahead. All Cash, I understand that your method is solid and sound, but I am just not sure how practical it is for the majority of newbie investors.

Mine is just another perspective. :D

I appreciate your remarks, All Cash, and the time you put into helping others find the way to the top.

Lenderles, the only RESPA disclosure laws that I am familiar with in reference to double closings is around the disclosure of title insurance premium pass-through. If it is a RESPA law that you are referring to then it would not just be for Georgia as you communicated but for all of the United States since RESPA is a federal law. I have never heard of an arrest around any failures to disclose of this type since it is a civil matter and not a criminal. The disclosure of title insurance premium pass-through is if the seller is paying for title insurance then they will need to sign a disclosure stating that you may be using that premium to partially fund a title insurance premium on a simultaneous closing to a buyer.

I also know of several investors in Atlanta that do double closings on a regular basis, and I would hypothesize that they are not in danger of jail or even civil charges. One of them even uses a respected attorney to do his double closings.

I also would ALWAYS recommend getting sound legal advice from a qualified attorney in your state before doing any type of creative real estate investing.

I also think communicating unverified or misinformed rumors around real estate laws is a destructive practice and should only be done with the utmost caution and reserve.