Little

I really wanna start getting into real estate and don't really know where to start. I mean i just started to save up some pennies and probably won't be able to do anything for at least another year. Are there any good seminars or anything of that nature that could educate me on what is all needed to make the jump into real estate easier. I know you need a real estate liscensce or something to become and actual agent, but i'm lookin to do some fixer uppers and turn them around for some profit. Does anyone know anything about foreclosed properties?? Any good books to look into, etc.? Any input would help me greatly.

BTW, the first house i buy is one i'm lookin to live in for a bit, maybe a year or so. Is it even possible to get a house for no money down like a few people have told me. I am a first buyer too. I'm also from NJ.

wiszmaster

first investment would be to NOT buy the e60, or any other expensive car for that matter.

next i would do some research on growing areas .. thats usually where you will find that real estate appreciates quickly. for instance our area here in SWFL ... Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Naples, Lehigh Acres ... Cape Coral is in the TOP 10 of the nation of the fastest growing cities. Naples was just named the 3rd most overpriced city in the Nation .. naples is 15-20 miles south of here. (http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/...valuations.htm) ... i bought a few lots for ~$35K little over a year ago ... they are NOW worth $150K ... go figure. there is plenty of money to be made down here, and other parts of the nation.

If you are not a realtor, you will line someone elses pocket when selling properties .. if you become a real estate agent ... you will not only cut your loss of profit into 50% or if you sell it yourself 100% .. but you will also be able to list other properties & make 1.5% - 3% of the property selling price.

maybe build a spec home? right now the average profit for a spec home in the 2000-2500 sqft. living area is between $40K-$100K .. if you go into 3500-5000 sqft living you are looking at an aproximate profit of $150K - $300K ... but that requires a bit of cash, or you being able to finance it until you sell it, and possibly carry it a few months until it sells.

jta00r1

I also agree cape coral, Ft. Myers is and good place for investment, the downside to flipping is the new clauses in builders contracts stated you must hold on to the property for a miniuim of 12 months before you can resell. I invested in Florida and ran into that more times than none. If you find custom builders than you may find no clause like that one.

wiszmaster

some of the "Family" builders do .. like first home builders ... shity built homes for "cheap" ... some other communities have the same clause .. such as KB built homes if i remember correctly.

I work for a builder, and we have no such clause.

jta00r1

I have looked at national builders like David Weekly, Toll Brothers, Ryland, Drhorton just a few that has that clause in the Tampa area. Also in Ft. myers I seen a few areas as well.

wiszmaster

yes, some of the larger ones do. i know ryland does, i deal with their marketing & IT people all the time.

you just have to look around ... some do, some don't. there are a few highrises coming up here ... most of them have sold out within .. 2-4 hours of opening pre-sales ... pretty crazy. last i heard they didn't have such clause ... because the miami people buy up everything over here & sell it for 2x as much .. and they do it all day long.

teutonictrio

I'm going to contradict the others on the forum - investing in real estate now is like buying stocks on March 10th, 2000. Perhaps in a year from now it will be a wiser investment, depending on the area you look at, as the signs are clear that the market is showing signs of exhaustion, and the leading indicator nationwide is always San Diego, for some reason. Perhaps in a year the sellers will be desparate and the builders even more so, and you can get in a home that would have cost you 30% more just a few months earlier - it's happened in smaller bubbles in the recent past, but this one is much, much larger.

Be careful reading all the press about people who were flipping houses - there were many failures as well, just like there were millions who lost everything in the stock market. Timing is everything.

The mortgage industry is about to reinvent itself yet again. If the housing market fails and there indeed is a bubble 'burst', the private mortgage companies that made it easier to get a home loan than return merchandise at Costco will be out of business, as the risk they brought to the global economic market was severe, and as homebuyers who bought with little to no down payment find themselves with a negative loan to value ratio, the banks who bought the loans from the private mortgage companies will start pulling the houses from the owners and selling them to get at least some of their money back. When you have no equity in your home and the market goes against you, you risk losing the home, and it's a very real risk. Banks will NOT carry that much debt for long.

When I bought my first home in 1995 I had to do the biggest song and dance to prove I could pay for it that you could imagine. I had a huge chunk of money in the bank (for the time) and had proof of income. I almost had to get a co-signer and had almost perfect credit. Now, you can have terrible credit, no money in the bank, no down payment, and have companies competing for your mortgage, for cripes sake! I could go to a private mortgage broker and give them my name and say I want a $1.8million mortgage for a home I want to buy and they would hand me the paperwork. It used to be harder than anything to get a house, and that's the way it should be.

Still on my soapbox here - last point - don't EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER buy a house with no down payment. That is incredibly irresponsible and 100% speculative. You are betting that the market will only go up. Put some money down - if you can't, you are in no position to buy. At LEAST 10%, but 20%.

Bimmer32

I'm going to contradict the others on the forum - investing in real estate now is like buying stocks on March 10th, 2000. Perhaps in a year from now it will be a wiser investment, depending on the area you look at, as the signs are clear that the market is showing signs of exhaustion, and the leading indicator nationwide is always San Diego, for some reason. Perhaps in a year the sellers will be desparate and the builders even more so, and you can get in a home that would have cost you 30% more just a few months earlier - it's happened in smaller bubbles in the recent past, but this one is much, much larger.

Be careful reading all the press about people who were flipping houses - there were many failures as well, just like there were millions who lost everything in the stock market. Timing is everything.

The mortgage industry is about to reinvent itself yet again. If the housing market fails and there indeed is a bubble 'burst', the private mortgage companies that made it easier to get a home loan than return merchandise at Costco will be out of business, as the risk they brought to the global economic market was severe, and as homebuyers who bought with little to no down payment find themselves with a negative loan to value ratio, the banks who bought the loans from the private mortgage companies will start pulling the houses from the owners and selling them to get at least some of their money back. When you have no equity in your home and the market goes against you, you risk losing the home, and it's a very real risk. Banks will NOT carry that much debt for long.

When I bought my first home in 1995 I had to do the biggest song and dance to prove I could pay for it that you could imagine. I had a huge chunk of money in the bank (for the time) and had proof of income. I almost had to get a co-signer and had almost perfect credit. Now, you can have terrible credit, no money in the bank, no down payment, and have companies competing for your mortgage, for cripes sake! I could go to a private mortgage broker and give them my name and say I want a $1.8million mortgage for a home I want to buy and they would hand me the paperwork. It used to be harder than anything to get a house, and that's the way it should be.

Still on my soapbox here - last point - don't EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER buy a house with no down payment. That is incredibly irresponsible and 100% speculative. You are betting that the market will only go up. Put some money down - if you can't, you are in no position to buy. At LEAST 10%, but 20%.
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Here is a sound weblink to start reading about real estate investment:

www.investinginland.com

Click on the Learn>>Free Article section and start reading. Be critical of everything you read and don't just to buy or pay for seminars. You will learn more with a good selection of real estate books at your local library.

I'm not too much older than you (32), but here's small tid-bid from me. A college degree is for starters, a post graduate is what you need. You can be successful without a formal education, but your success chances are higher with one. If something is too good to be true, exactly so. I concur with an earlier post about the "importance of timing." I learned it the hard way with the tech boom. Network and connect with other people of like minds. When you have attained the level of success, buy an E60 for the enjoyment (like most of us in this forum). Depriciation is your biggest enemy. According to Edmunds, you would have spent $66,000 in 5 years on your E60.