All Forum Posts by: Shannon Elam

The 3-day class is awesome. My husband and I took and it was invaluable, but $15-30K could have gotten us a down payment on a cash flowing multifamily in certain parts of our city. Glad we found BP as well! Good luck.

This sounds like a nightmare. As I read on and on, it was like reading a best selling thriller: my stomach was in my throat. But as a new investor, I really appreciate when people share horror stories and are completely transparent about success and failure. Believe it or not, it is very encouraging. This wasn't a complete fail, but the reality is the although no one WANTS to, we do sometimes loose money in REI.

Thanks for sharing and I hope all goes well. Im just curious...are you new to turnkey? Or did you just come across a new company the did you wrong?

Hi Marc. I am in the South Suburbs, but looking to do buy and holds on the West Side of Chicago (where I grew up) as well as in the West Suburbs. I currently have one SFR with my husband in the S. Suburbs. After that experience, he has taken a step back from investing, so I understand dealing with spousal apprehension. Good luck with your investing, and I look forward to hearing great things in the future.

We used lots of CCs for our first flip (now SFR) and the the biggest hurdle was the cash-out refinance. Most cards were zero interest, but we did get stuck with some interest charges. It's also annoying to have multiple CC bills due different days each month before the re-finance goes through. Considering everything, we would probably have fared better with a HML because (1) We would have one bill every month and (2) The HML would not lend on a bad deal. Our deal was not necessarily bad, but the way we handled the financing turned it into a not so great deal.

I saw this yesterday, and yes this was awesome. I've wanted an island for about 10 years now and I never imagined one could get one for $15K. I thought maybe $1mil, but even the cost to make it livable would be astronomical, so I put that one in the pipe dream folder along with being a Princess. This family proved me wrong. But I wonder what it cost to build the resort. And how much for a week long vacation. B)

 LOL. I just saw this after I posted. Had you owned the property for a year when the bank approved you for 80% of the appraised value? 

I did the same thing and we now have renters in our "flip". Bought for 60K, put too much into it, did not sell- not even an offer. When we put it up for rent, folks came out of the wood works. Since we fixed the house up to sell- granite, stainless, and the works- we can ask for premium rent with no problem. 

The only problem now is refinancing for a percentage of the appraised value rather than the purchase price. We ran into two problems trying to do this: (1) We hadn't owned the home for more than a year when we tried to refinance; and (2) The home was in LLC rather than in our name. As far as refinancing goes, it doesn't seem to be as easy as most would have you think, at least it isn't for us. Maybe you will have better luck.

Wow. I dont know where to start. @Greg Hiban , we've read Dave Ramsey and prior to investing in real estate, we followed some of his teachings and my husband and I both had <$1000 in credit card debt. Regardless, its no excuse to have gotten this much debt and we dont plan on doing it again. I also believe there is more than one school of thought.

@Brian Matthews We are definately not buying real estate for the sake of buying real estate. Who does that? Of course when we got into this the goal was to make money and it still is. That is why I dont want one bad deal to stop me completely. I feel like you are saying, "You're broke. Go crawl in a hole and die." This is precisely why I posed the question here. I know I am not the only person with a flip that didnt sell or a rental that doesnt cash flow.

I was just looking for some advise or insight as to how someone has recovered from this.

BTW I haven't declared bankruptcy and dont plan to.

Has anyone had success in real estate after filing bankruptcy or going through a debt relief program? I am thinking of doing a debt relief program to get a fresh start.

I have a SFR that is currently rented out on an 18 month lease. The problem is that we used home equity, home improvement, and credits cards to finance this deal- acquisition and renovation. The monthly rent barely covers the minimum payments on these accounts. We are looking to do a cash out refinance, but currently that is still up in the air. However, after looking into debt relief programs, that seems like a better option than a 30 year loan with interest. The debt relief will only cover unsecured debt.

I do not want this one deal to be the end of my real estate investing career. Can anyone offer some insight.

@Kelly B. That's a really good idea.  Is that something that you do? 

@Brian Gibbons I'll have to look into upgrademycredit.com. Is this something that you did with ROFR or lease option or both?