All Forum Posts by: Shanti S.

Welcome - I'll bite, how do you accidentally end up with 4 rentals? Did you mean to flip them and then couldn't?

Good friend came over this weekend and dropped off a reloading press so I was busy combining some other precious metals this weekend :cool:

I think dogs are much more nurture vs nature as far as poor behavior goes - most people have no clue about how to train dogs so they're safer with small breeds - a small 'bad' dog isn't gonna do as much damage as a large one :roll:

Welcome - if you haven't been to any local REIAs it can be great to meet people in person - and some of the MA ones have a new group membership so you join one and then can go to any one of several meetings / locations per month.

Just don't get sucked into the $1500 product guru sales pitch from the famous guests invited to many of them :-) You'll do fine with books, BP, and conversation, and keep your $10k for now!

A quick MLS search will give you an idea of how many are on the retail market, if you want to pay retail prices...

Local town hall, or professional list broker can provide lists of multifamily owners and mailing addresses if you want to try a direct mail campaign and try to find a burnt out or retirement ready landlord...

Larger MF's can be found on sites like loopnet but they're kind of like the MLS - 99% of them are not good deals, but they're good for getting a feel for the retail market and practicing some deal analysis

I'm sure others will chime in with further advice!

Correct.

Typically you'd put a small amount of $ in to bind the contract (perhaps $100 or even less).

Also, wholesale properties can certainly be financed; I just did one. But typically financing takes a bunch of extra time and jumping through hoops, plus the bank will likely not want to finance the assignment fee, so that would be $20k in cash on the side between the buyer and yourself, plus the buyer financing the contract price of the property.

Correct - but a couple of points -

buyer must actually buy the property. Closing in one month is not easy to do with any sort of financing - so you'd be looking for a serious cash buyer.

and if there is no closing, yes you walk away, but chances are you have put the homeowner in an even more difficult position than they started in - motivated sellers most likely to give you a contract with room for your profit in it may be in a major personal or financial bind and be depending on you to perform. Please consider their needs too.

If I had plenty of money but poor credit and not much time, I might consider paying someone to help me 'fix' my credit.

But if you have a bunch of debt, don't pay someone for something you can easily do yourself - you're much better off leveraging that money to deal with your creditors and pay down the debt. You need to be very organized, have a plan, and get promises in writing.

Many of these folks will suck you in telling you that they can settle your debts for a fraction of the real balance owed. They usually don't tell you how much worse this will make your credit, and how the IRS will come after you later for the written off debt - which they will consider income that you need to pay taxes on.

Learn the basics, the knowledge will serve you for the rest of your life. Don't make another move until you know what effect it will have. I had a high interest credit card that I paid off and closed, it really hurt my score for some time.

Some of the basics - avoid opening new accounts and especially closing really old ones. Keep any balances spread across multiple accounts so no single account has a high % balance on it. Pay everything on time and if you can't, contact the creditor immediately and work something out. If someone says they will remove something from your record, make sure you get it in writing - chances are it will come back months or years later and you need that letter to get it removed again. If you have positive history that is not showing up, see if you can get it reported fresh again.....

join a site like creditboards and spend some serious time doing some reading - credit is complicated and a lot of the principles that the credit bureaus operate by make very little sense and you'd never guess at them. You'll find that most people that have given you advice are misinformed or don't really have a clue.

Don't fall for any credit repair scams, you can do it all yourself but it will take a plan and some real patience and discipline.

Remember you can bird-dog, wholesale, or partner with someone who has better credit but not your motivation, connections, or knowledge. Good credit is great to have and will make your life in general much easier and cheaper; but you don't necessarily want to use your good credit to buy investment properties!

Why not contact a local recommended realtor? Let them know you're thinking of selling and they should be able to give you some recent comparable sales. They should also be able to provide you with MLS access so that you can do some comp research of your own. Finally, they should have access to a pool of buyers who are eager to claim that first-time homebuyer's credit before it expires.