All Forum Posts by: Shanti S.

I'd be wary of the overwhelming itch, I'm familiar with that one.

With the $75k, you're in a good position to finance a rehab, maybe an all cash purchase PLUS rehab, I don't know what area you're interested in.

But I'd establish some criteria ahead of time for what you want, and not deviate from that for the time being.

Whether you want to get up in front of a REIA group and let it be known that you have $ to lend or are interested in partnerships, or if you want to do it all yourself, let the criteria be your guide not the overhwhelming itch :-)

Best of success!

I feel more each day that the big banks and businesses ARE the gov't, but at least it's a small step that ordinary people can take to feel better about their actions and perhaps have a real impact that reaches farther than their individual ballot might...

I can't see any drawbacks to the movement in any case!

Thanks for sharing Ted

+1 on all the advice so far....

Even if you found a 'guru' that is honest and put together a great educational package and seminar, I wouldn't spend my first $2k of investing capital on a seminar or guru.

Like a few said, get some budget marketing going, read, read, read and ask questions on this site, and use your funds to get your business started instead.

Then when you've got something starting to work for you and have an idea where you want to focus, I might consider a seminar in that topic from a legitimate person - the seminars can also be as valuable for the networking as for the knowledge, but you want to be ready to take advantage of it!

Good luck!

This has been discussed in other threads, but a couple of points -

Facts -

- You can sometimes rollover a portion of your existing 401k even if you are still at your same job - check with your plan - I did this, rolled the portion of the 401k that came from my previous job into a new self directed Roth. No penalty.

- You can also often take up to 50% of your 401k balance out as a loan, then pay yourself back with no penalties. This can be used to make some deals happen.

Opinions -

I wouldn't take the penalty of early withdrawal. And I don't want any properties free and clear right now when fixed rate mortgages are so low. If I did own my home or other properties free and clear, I'd refi and take that $ and invest in the super deals all around right now! I think inflation's coming bigtime so I'd rather get those loans now not later....

+1 on the iphone - it's so refined and the interface such a pleasure to use. You can figure out almost everything intuitively.

Unfortunately I can't have one since I live in the sticks and they don't work there. So I get by with an old school Motorola flip phone that works where nobody else's phone seems to, plus an ipod touch that I use as a PDA so I can have most of the iphone functionality.

I had an HTC windows mobile smartphone that was pure misery - don't know about their other models.

Favorite iphone app - Evernote. Amazing program, I dump multiple files and pictures and document scans into it daily and can find them in a snap on any computer I own or on the ipod.

I can even toss camera phone or digital camera pics into Evernote, and it OCR's them! (if there is any text in the photo it will read it and auto-catalog it)....

IF you can match the tile perfectly and IF there are only a couple out of whack you may be able to remove them, grind down the thinset, and put new tiles in their place at the same level as the surrounding ones. Even then, matching the grout so the repair is invisible would probably be a challenge.

I'd probably make everything else look good and the buyers may not notice - they're busy picturing their stuff and their life in the house, you're looking at every little construction detail.

I was pretty unhappy with my contractor's latest tile job in the bathrooms but no buyers ever noticed a thing.

When are you looking to sell?

Would you consider owner financing?

How did you determine your asking price?

Can you do better than that?

What your favorite thing about this property?

What's your least favorite?

Does it need any major repairs? Minor?

How much do you owe on the property?

Would you be willing to sell it for what you owe?

Do the tenants have leases?

Any lead paint / asbestos / environmental issues?

Any problems passing an inspection (like work done w/o permits)?

How long have the tenants been there and are they interested in staying?

Google the seller and property, might turn up something interesting...

I'm sure others will chime in and that you're already looking at what info is available from the town on the property...

So far we've done CL ads, newspaper / pennysaver ads, REIA meetings and networking with business cards, and bandit signs.

We're getting far and away the best response from the bandit signs.

YMMV, I'm sure it depends on the town, owners, etc what will work best.

I'm assuming this is for a quick rehab / very short term loan, so the points are probably a bigger chunk than the interest will be...

F......I like to cover my bases.

Have not used hard $ before.