All Forum Posts by: Travis Zuehls

I wouldn't put much stock into it. If one isn't comfortable with their current car just park far enough so nobody see's your car. For right now I'm fine with my 2008 Saturn Aura as it's black and looks like an expensive lexus but you can find them for under 6k right now. In the near future I'll probably go with a Tesla but your car isn't a reason why anyone selects you over another agent. If you have a car that's not what you want at the moment just make sure it's clean inside and out with no major damages.

1.) Get into the real estate game and basically have an unlimited income potential

a.) Home Inspector: training costs anywhere from 3k-10k. You would make $400-$1000 per a home inspection which takes anywhere from 1-3 hours. You could make a months salary in a day with 4 decently priced home inspections.

b.) Real Estate Agent: Training cost $300-2k. I just joined EXP realty. Basically each home inspection after I meet my 16.5k cap is 100% commissions and I can set the percentage I make off the property I sell. EXP also gives you stock, and you receive a % of pay of each person you get to join EXP realty up to 7 levels. If you get 20 people to join in 2 years that could potentially be six figures a year of passive income not including the stock or the regular sales you make.

c.) Become a wholesaler: You find distressed people via public records (pre forclosure, delinquent property taxes, probate, lien, etc) Send out mail or door knock on these properties. Drive for dollars and look for abandoned homes. Put up bandit signs in high traffic areas that come to a stop (cash for houses/our rich grandma buys houses/we buy houses/our dog buys houses etc. lol Then you just use a whole sale template contract for that home as the offer and then contract it out to a house flipper. You'll have to do the math to ensure both you and the flipper can make a decent profit. This costs nothing to get started and requires no license. In the end very few people will do this and the ones who do even less of them will stick with it for more than a year. There are less wholesalers than agents. You could potentially to all these but just start out with one and master it. Youtube is a great source to get started

I doing this you will meet many investors and rich people if you sell luxury homes or commercial property. I joined a Real Estate Investors club which has helped out a lot.

Building credit:

1.) Self Lender: no hard inquiry and no credit required. Just pay into the installment loans for 12 months and get your money back except a very small percentage and your credit will soar.

2.) Pinch: an app that enables you to post 24 months of previous rental history to all 3 credit bureaus and continues to post your monthly payments for free. This will go down as real estate history.

3.) Authorized User: if your father has a credit card or two of 3+ years of on time full payments with under 6% utilization then request to have him put you on as an authorized user.

4.) Credit Union: get with a credit union and then request for a secured card.

5.) Capitol One secured card: After a while they will change this card into a unsecured card like quicksilver as your payment history and credit go up.

All this can be done with no hard inquiry at all and you can start from no credit to easily a 720+ score within one year no problem as long as you pay on time and in full.

Now obviously your credit score is irrelevant if you would like to do a land contract or owner financing but I like to go with the first deal as just a regular loan. If you were not military and can't apply for the VA loan I would suggest going for the USDA loan if the home meets the qualifications. USDA has a 0% down and lower closing costs. As long as you don't make over the income standards for an individual by the time you apply for your first USDA loan then you should be good. If not go for the FHA loan so you only need 3.5% down.

As for the property itself. 

1.) Location location location: low crime rate, good schools, close to transportation, in a growing economy/market, close to hospitals and grocery stores.

2.) Manufactured homes: much more affordable and if you get them off city limits the taxes are cheaper.

3.) Inspection: solid foundation, septic system, roof, electrical, and plumbing. Small cosmetic issues are fine

4.) Make sure the numbers add up (I go for at least $1000 back after all expenses per property as a bare minimum)

5.) Tenants: the best tenants are the ones that have a long term permanent job that already have intense back ground checks, credit checks, drug screenings, and a job that will come down on them if their land lord complains. I've found that military with the rank of E-4 and above do very well. Check pay stubs to ensure they make three times the rent, credit check to verify little to no debt and no history of late payments. Check their rental history for no late payments. References from previous land lords. Have 10-12 great screening questions to meet your standards.

Very true, one must evaluate their probablity of their own situation and risks. Obviously having that money that is liquid is a plus. Or having a backup job or business. Having a permanent job combined with your own side business that you entend to be full time in plus a great ROI for the rental property and a sufficient Emergancy fund should pay wonders.

If one is in a business which their income/job/business is way to unpredictable or just can't make triple the amount of debt within the same amount of time then it's too risky.

I am fortunate to have the permanent long term job with stable income and starting two side businesses in rental property and Real estate agent along with tradeline commissions.

Correct the utilization is based off that specific card. However, having multiple opened revolving accounts minimizes the effect one maxed out line of credit has on your overall score.

I'm still receiving a ton of bank credit card offers with 30K+ of credit and the 0% transfers. If they're cutting back I'll just attempt to take advantage of each opportunity while making sure I can either pay it off in full before the 0% monthly payment offer ends or have another card lined up for a balance transfer. These deals really work well, especially for manufactured homes with 3+ bedrooms that you can negotiate for under 50k. Then if you transfer all that onto one card like my father did that's free money plus you can make money by paying the monthly payments (1% on everything else).

Thanks,

  I am actually using a 0% interest for 18 months balance transfer right now with Discover card. It has 5% cash back as well for utilities. Free money + paying me for things my tenants pay for. It's better this way.

My Father did this with a construction loan of 23k (100 sq ft log 2 bed one bath log cabin) and transferred the balance onto a card promotion he received from his bank. He paid it off in under 12 months and his credit score increased after completion of the payments. So that's 23k of 0% (FREE MONEY). 

Hello Matt,

Yes that could drop the score depending on your overall history and how much credit line you have and total open revolving credit lines as well.

For instance I have 5 cards of nearly 100k. The one card maxed out will affect my score but I will be making on time payments every month. Also, my score will still most likely be above the 720 mark as I have a ton of history from my cards, loans, etc so one card will not destroy it. Lastly, I wouldn't be applying for another line of credit until that card balance is nearly paid off and by that time the score will be back to where it was or even higher than before. 

It helps if one has prepared for something like this for 4-6 years by building up their credit. I've even added my rent to my credit recently which boosted it another 20 points with the app Pinch and it reports to all three credit bureaus for free.

Now if I were to max out all the cards at the same time and start applying for more cards well that just wouldn't work out well at all. One 25k in 12 months or 50k card in 18 months is feasible depending on your revenue coming in from the property (s).

My friend, there are multiple credit cards that offer balance transfers of up to 50k and up to 18 months of 0% interest. You can transfer your home loan onto these cards. If you're for some reason unable to finish up the payments before the 18 months then just re apply for another transfer to another card to prevent paying the major interest rates.

I'm very surprised more people don't take advantage of these opportunities.

Also, plastics enables you to pay off your monthly mortgages. That's thousands of dollars towards points or cash back.

Just ensure you have a 6 month emergency fund before purchasing your first rental property.

Regular credit cards allow balance transfers of 18 months 0% interest and some have a make credit line of 100k. You could basically just transfer nearly the entire home loan onto the cards then once the term of 0% comes close to ending just transfer to another credit card that has a similar offer.

Why pay any interest when you can get the loan for free?