Can you really buy investment homes with little money down?
Question by Eric W: Can you really buy investment homes with little money down?
I see these late-night infomercials from Carleton Sheets and other people, talking about purchasing “distressed properties” and flipping them for substantial profit. I am selling my house now, and will soon have about $ 45K in cash to invest – my credit is absolutely terrible and I have only been in my current employment a short period of time. Are there ways I can purchase forclosures/mortgage defaults/”distressed properties” for a few thousand down and flip them, as these TV informercials say you can really do? How might I get more information without spending the damn $ 200 for this “wisdom”?
Best answer:
Answer by bull_rooster_aardvark
Yes you really can, but it ain’t easy (like he seems to say). Its like a job you are looking for houses all day, putting down lots and lots of offers to have a few accepted. Spending most of your time either fixing up the last purchase or looking for the next one.
Still, having said that I think it is a great way to make a living. The money is fantastic (but you do really have to put in alot of hours) and once you know what you are dong and have some money built up it gets easier and easier and you can even do several at the same time. I was flipping about 1 per month a few years ago – now I do other stuff (note I was not buying and resellilng the same house in one months time but if it took about 4-5 months to flip a house I’d have 5 in the works at one time so it averaged about 1 per month).
I think this is a great path to be on but the learning curve is steep and it really is hard work. As to the how, I would suggest just going to the bookstore (or even library) and reading lots of books on real estate investing. Watch the tv show about this too for more info, and join an real estate investment club. Also, I strongly advise getting a realtor license – you never need to buy or sell any houses but your own, but the license gives you access to so much more info and saves so much on commissions that you really need it.
Good luck, fyi I’ve read many, many books on real estate investing over many years. The main reason I stopped was I kept finding so little new info in each consecutive book there was no longer much point in reading more books.
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