All Forum Posts by: Ryan Standage

i kinda found what im looking for at trulia.com
only the information only goes to july '07. You can view the graph at trulia click on real estate guides at the top then click arizona then click mesa and it will pull up a chart then click on the number of sales tab near the graph.
it shows how many homes have sold over the past five or so years. You can see the steady groth up untill 3 years ago, the boom, then the huge decline in the number of houses sold, which has caused house prices to drop fast. the drop has continued even untill now (July - Nov) and it doesnt seem to be looking up anytime soon. Im now ready to buy, financing is squared away and im shopping the market, however i believe (simple supply and demand laws) if no one is still buying the prices will continue to fall, untill people start buying again, and as soon as i see a few months of steady sales i will buy a house under current market value, and under current neighborhood value, do alittle curb appeal, get some roomates and make some cash flow every month while living for free, as of right now with my current financing i can break even on a few houses here in mesa, but it would be nice to pocket some cash if can.

if anyone knows of a better place to find a graph like this please let me know. Or if you have any ideas and/or suggestions for me i am all ears. thanks alot.

You are limited in your own investments just like i am.
im 24 also a full time student and part time worker.

i cant finance because i cant prove my income high enough to purchase a property worth anything.

all you have to do, is find a property that you can get into, afford, and make $$$ on and then find a person to back your purchase with their income/credit. Hopefully you will only have to do this on your first deal.

im using my parents, but anyone will work friends, grandparents, a cool boss etc. just present them your plan and prove that you can do it.

im buying my first house here pretty soon, im financing it using my credit and my parents income, so we are both on the paperwork, after two years goes by i will refinance and take my parents off.

my house is going to be 4 bedrooms, i will share one room with a buddy pulling 285 for the master bedroom, 350 each for the 2 empty rooms upstairs and 250 a piece for a shared room upstairs, total flow from rent will be $1485 (fully occupied) my mortgage is going to be around 1200 on the house im looking at right now.

there is a system that holds everyone down, we have to get creative to beat the system, in my case the system wont allow me to purchase a home due to lack of income, but i can clearly afford it with roomates due to the lack of student housing. get creative man youll find it, let me know what happens.

there are several situations that would require a builder/developer to HAVE to negotiate, among the few i know are 1- the builder is just starting a development and has to sell a few units fast right off the bat to get access to the "bulk" of his financing to finish the project (these can be amazing deals).
and 2- during a slow market builders have to sell a bare minumum of homes just to keep the doors open untill things pick up again. here is phoenix i hear on the radio 1 or twice a week of huge incentives offered by builders to get people in to buy a home. You can lower the house purchase price AND get up to 20K cash back for upgrades right now in phoenix.

im looking for any resources preferably online where i can find the number of home sells (new builds and used) in my area (phoenix, az). what would really help is if i could find a bar graph that would plot the number of home sells each month for the last couple of years.

the phoenix market recently experienced a boom and the housing prices soared through the roof, however they are now slowly coming back down and i am ready to buy, however i think the prices will continue to fall alittle more and i could profit a little more from my purchase if i hold out and wait longer. I am hoping this information from the number of home sells each month will help to determine the best time to buy.

if anyone knows where i can find this information it would be greatly appreciated
thanks
ryan

so i asked a question, and it has been a few days and i still havent heard back from anyone so im gonna ask i again and maybe someone knows the answer

to take over existing financing, do I, as a buyer have to be approved by either the original lender, or a lender of my own? or can the owner just sign the mortgage and property over to me and i start making the payments?

thanks for the help

ryan

Real estate investing for many can seem like a very time consuming, over whelming, process especially when starting out. It's always good to hear success stories that make it all worth it and keep us going.

Please share the best (most profitable) deal you have ever done or been involved in. Please be specific, include details about the property and how it was acquired at what was done with it.

Ill get the ball rolling, however i am 24 and have never done a deal of my own, but i follow in the footsteps of my parents and will share their best deal.

After moving to a small town in AZ, my father wanting to get back to his cowboy roots started looking at cattle ranches for sale. He found one just 10 minutes outside of town, which included 35 square miles of lease permit (the right to run cattle, but owned by state) and 1100 of deaded acres (which he would actually own). No structures at all, just land. He paid $250,000 for the ranch to an old man nearing the end of the line, he just wanted to get rid of the ranch so he didnt have to work it anymore.

My father played cowboy on it for 5 years using it for a tax break from his real job with the intentions of subdividing and developing it. Unfortunetly serious illness prevented that and he sold it to an investor from california for $1.8 million. Who has developed it and made even more.

My father used this money to purchase many other properties all over AZ, which now 2 years later totals a little over 3 mil, and now that he is feeling better from the illness he is looking to purchase another ranch.

lets here some other good deals out there. And if you dont mind shaing how long youve been in it, what you started with and now how much your worth.

from what i have learned (and i may be wrong) if you make an offer on a property you are bound to purchase the property at the given price or you will lose the $$$ you put up. There are only a few stipulations that i know of that can release you from purchasing the property without penalty, for example finding something wrong with the house within ten days, being unable to gain financing and i think there is one more but i cant remember. My current roomate was looking to buy a house this last month and that was the advice i gave him, make a list off all the house you like and low ball them all, take the lowest counter of the best house, he contacted my brother (RE agent) and he informed us that he could potentially be bound to every offer he made.

there is probably a way around this (perhaps somehow making offers without putting up cash)- which is why i posted the information above, hopefully somebody will shine the light on this subject because i would love to be able to make multiple lowball offers.

i like the sound of that. also, in order to take over someones mortgage and aquire the property, do i have to be approved by the original lender or can the owner of the property just sign it over to me?

if i have to be approved then im back to square one trying to raise my proveable income.

if not i could just have my parents buy the property i want and have them sign it over to me.

also, like i said earlier phoenix recently experienced a huge boom, preperties tripled in value in about a year and a half to two years, they peaked, and over the past year and a half have been slowly coming down but they arent as low as they were before the boom. because of this crazy boom and different types of expensive "equity" loans there are foreclosures everywhere,

these are really the only distressed owners that i have come in contact with thus far.

from what i understand most people who bought during this boom have negative equity, if the properties do foreclose they will be auctioned off for far less then what they were bought for, but these dont seem like something that i could profit from because of the amount that is owed on these homes in comparison to the value of the home. is the bank going to be the one to take the hit and loose the money on thousands of deals?

also, you talked about marketing to distressed sellers, any good ideas?

i once worked for a banker who is a good friend of mine, he owns 20 houses, and find them all by little business cards that say i buy houses that i wold pass out for him door to door when i was yournger. Do you have any suggestions for finding these distressed sellers?

if i could find a distressed owner of a middle class three bedroom condo to take over the mortgage i would be in good shape.

thanks for all the good advice

i havent researched the lease option all that much, so i dont know alot about it, i just see the signs on the side of the road on posterbaord saying lease to own! and they are all over town, and i im pretty big believer in the rule

"if you have to advertise it, its not as good as its craked up to be"

for example you see on tv advertisements for people to go to massage therapy school and "get the career of their dreams" have you ever talked to a message therapist? i know 5 and they all paid for the schooling and not one works as a message therapist. everytime i see one of those commercials i shake my head.

i figured if these people have to advertisig that they are willing to lease to own, its probably a better deal for them.

i could be wrong, i will have to do some research on lease options but thanks for the information, do you recommend any good books or websites about lease options?
thanks

ryan

well, i have to admit i have not explored my options as for "creating" equity as much as i have for "building" equity because my parents use the buy and hold strategy and are extremely successful. They do not claim to be real estate invesors, but over the past 10 years and an accidental decision to buy some land and build their dream home later to change their minds and sell the land subdivided and making 100k in a year, their minds started spinning. ten years later they are worth 3 mil and have properties all over arizona and they dont pay a dime into them they constantly "building" equity and all of them put cash into their pockets every month its like a game of monopoly to them he has has the hotels wins.

they told me "never sell a property unless you have to to get into a bigger, better property"

i would guess that the tax laws are similiar in the UK.

anyways... my brother and sister have both purchased property while going to school and aquired roomates to help cover costs and it has worked out well for them. we have to live somewhere and if we can get others to pay our mortgage for us, why not? the market right now makes this possible.

as for the lack of money, i never said that, i said i have a lack of provable income. i have money, for downpayment and closing cost, and i would never enter into a property without havin 6 months of mortgage money sitting in a bank account just in case i cant rent a room or the roof does go out.

i do appreciate the advice, however i see no negatives to purchasing a property i can afford, at a good time (market wise) and living for free while my roomates pay my mortgage. I have already contacted a good friend of mine with a mortgage company (who knows my money and credti situtation), and he said all i have to do to get into a place around 130k is to make another 200 bucks a week at my "proveable" job. i will pick up a day and a half more of work a week starting next semester, and 6-8 months from now i will be ready to buy.