Patrick - what books, articles, etc. did you read before posting your topic?

Are there any good books on this subject?

Please suggest some good course and books on this subject.

Any advice on on a book keeping system would be appreciated also.

What an endless realm of information there is available through books, blogs, websites, etc!

Hey everyone, after years of watching DIY Network, reading every book I can find and listening to hundreds of hours of podcasts, I figured it's time for me to take a more proactive approach to real estate investing.

I think more of what you are asking is how the occupancy level and accuracy will affect what kind of loan you can get and how much you will put down and how much the debt service will be.A regular lender at 90% occupied maybe 6.5% fixed at 75% ltv.If you get into value add deals you will pay points and a much higher rate to fund and lower LTV.You will then need to refi after stabilizing about 1 year out.So you build the carrying costs into the amount of time needed.The books will determine the verified income and actual costs.From there you run your desired cap going in and that tells you around the price you want to pay.Now if the books are out of normal standard margins you have to ask yourself why that is (deferred maintenance,undisclosed credits to tenants,disguising fees paid to themselves in other line items,etc.)

With little experience & no funding you might want to read the book "Deals on Wheels" by Lonnie Scruggs and get your feet wet with buying and selling Mobile Homes or wholesaling them to others.

(This is a very important question - too much detail to go into)This is just 30% of the work for one deal that continues to give indications it is a good deal, most of the time (95%) you will not get this far before you ween them out of your sights.It is called due diligence.I could write a whole book on this alone but this is it a nutshell, which really doesn't encompass everything that needs to be done to see if this is a good deal to invest your time into.Time is money and money is time.Don't chase everything you see or do not try the shot gun approach, hoping one sticks...

If you have not read the book "Deals on Wheels" by Lonnie Scruggs, I would recommend it.