All Forum Posts by: Stephanie Ford

First and foremost I will disclose that I am a licensed Realtor and Investor.  I have been licensed for 19 years.  For the past 9 years, my focus turned more to investing vs selling traditional real estate.  I have several new investors that contact me asking me if they should get a real estate license in order to invest in real estate.  Their reasoning is that they feel that it will make them a better investor because they will have the inside scoop so to speak.  I beg to differ on this.  I have learned more tricks of the trade from investors who have been in the game than I could ever learn from any real estate classroom.  A real estate license provides you the access to the mls which is not really a big deal as long as you know a great Realtor.  Of course you will be able to perform your own research but most investors do that anyway before they contact the Realtor.  A real estate license subjects you to licensing laws and legal requirements that an investor does not have to abide by.  Honestly as more Realtor/Investors get into the investing side they move farther and farther away from the reason they initially got their license to make a career finding homes for their customers.  Instead they are now focused on finding customers for their homes that they find or they rehab.  Do you see the difference?  The game changes.  Yes if you are licensed you are definitely at an advantage.  However in the end is it really worth it?  Only you can answer that question.  This is one person's opinion.

Stephanie J Ford AKA She-Vestor

@Will Barnard Very true

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment.

Purchase price: $8,000

Rehabbing it presently. Trying to decide to whether to AIrBNB or do a fix N flip.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

It was cheap and had lots of value.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Sphere of Influence

How did you finance this deal?

self finance

How did you add value to the deal?

Total rehab

@Matt I. You definitely said something there! Market dictates everything! I had a lender tell me recently that I had to purchase a multifamily for 50k per unit as is. In Birmingham that's turnkey!

@Mike Klarman true. I think the hardest part is letting go...lol. In my opinion things are different for the self employed vs the employed pulling money out of a 401k or savings acct to fund risk investments. Employees still have something to fall back on vs self employed is sink or swim. Being self employed for almost 20 yrs I've always been careful with my investments however I've always landed on top. Even with the riskier ones.

In my experience, I would say as much as possible.  When I started I had $100,000, however I didn't think that was nearly enough so I decided to wholesale properties vs keeping them.  What I found out quickly that hard money lenders didn't want to loan to you if you didn't have experience.  And the ones that did wanted you to put down so much money that it didn't make much sense to let go so much capital to make a down payment on a property.  I know this conversation will go both ways on which way is best.  I decided to wholesale vs buy and holding to raise capital in get myself in a better position later on to have better options.  In 12 months I profited $225,000 from my wholesaling and flipping.  Some properties where straight out wholesales whereas others were prehabs where I fixed the property up just enough to resale it to another investor.  This came easy for me being in construction and real estate because I knew what the typical end investor was looking for.  Most new investors don't want to take on a lot of heavy lifting because it scares them away.  So I took that pressure away from them.  This money I made gave me options and that's what you want being a new investor in this business.

Sincerely,

Stephanie J Ford AKA Shevestor

Investment Info:

Small multi-family (2-4 units) wholesale investment.

Purchase price: $2,000
Cash invested: $1,000
Sale price: $22,000

Triplex unit in need of repair

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Quick money wholesaling property

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Mailing list

How did you finance this deal?

self finance

How did you add value to the deal?

maintained yard, clean out

What was the outcome?

wholesaled to another investor

Lessons learned? Challenges?

n/a

Investment Info:

Single-family residence fix & flip investment.

Purchase price: $5,000
Cash invested: $12,000
Sale price: $30,000

prehab enough to resale to next investor

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Easy flip

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Off market mailers

How did you finance this deal?

self finance

How did you add value to the deal?

brought the property to a saleable state. No cosmetic repairs, only necessary repairs.

What was the outcome?

sold to another investor

Lessons learned? Challenges?

n/a