I Have No Money

But I’ve been reading about real estate (especially about flipping fixer-upper properties) on these boards an in other places. Questions:

  1. Is real estate with “no money down” actually possible or is it just a gimmick?
  2. Do banks, realtors, sellers laugh at you for simply proposing anything beyond conventional?

I guess my question is can an average Joe like me get into real estate with a pittance of savings and if so, how?

Thanks.

–Brian

  1. It’s probably possible, but the concept of no money down can be stretched. For instance if you borrow the money or take a home equity loan or use credit cards can be considered no money down. But if you’ve got a fico score in the 500’s, owe a lot of money, don’t have closing costs etc., it certainly makes it much more difficult. In that case you’re competing with buyers that do have access to cheap credit and have good down payments. Your deals will just not be as profitable unless you’re very creative/lucky.

  2. Realtors/mortage people don’t get paid unless the deal goes through. You just need to come up with a good story. In a seller’s market, they don’t have to do anything that’s not conventional, someone else will come along that’s conventional. A lower price but with high chances of closing are better than list price and some fancy finance deal that falls apart at the last minute. Now it seems like more and more places are becoming a buyer’s market so at least people will probably hear you out. They still don’t make any money if it doesn’t close though.

With that said, if you have some kind of savings, say at least enough to cover the basics of a home inspection, a deposit ($500-1k) and closing costs you can probably get started with either a single family or multifamily to live in. Owner occupied properties are easy to get into. Flipping makes for great television and there are people here that seem to be successful at it, but if you read a lot of real estate books, it seems that many more people have been successful doing buy and hold and also to keep doing it.

The only way I have done a No money deal is by cold calling and when I find a motivated seller I did a lease-option contract with No money into it.

Brian,
What area of the country are you?
Dave

I’m in the northern New Jersey area, where everything seems obsenely expensive.

If you look at these no money down courses, they basically have you bird dogging to build cash. Tying up properties and spinning them off to real buyers. The real business starts when you have enough cash and credit to do your own deals. Remember real estate is a credit business. In order to be credit worthy you need collateral (the property itself) cash and credit.

Eventually you will need some cash. Even my last 2 deals that I call no money, I have to have cash to get the pre-approval and to do the fix-ups before I refinance to get my cash out. I use my cash but don’t expend my cash.

Well I do have about $5K in the bank, plus 3 credit cards with no balances and a 4th that’s half-full (about $10K credit) bringing my spending max to about $20K. Plus I could probably take out a loan against my 401(k) which would be about $12K or so. I guess I could use that for a down payment.

My credit is good (I’ve only missed 2 payments in like 5 years) but it’s a bit light, considering my biggest loan is an auto loan. My salary, however, is low for this area so I think that would also be a factor in me getting approved.

Any thoughts?

Yea, I believe its possible.
As is suggested above, these kind of deals are basically bird dogging.
Do that for awhile to get yourself acclamated to the process a bit and build yourself up some money, all while youre networking with others in the field.
One thing ive learned is that more of your OWN money you have in a deal, the more risk youre taking.
Find a program that teaches you how to find and negotiate with motivated sellers and minimize your risk.
I personally recommend Peter Conti’s “protege program”
Very good info in that program that helps reduce the learning curve that would normally take years to figure out

if you have a lot of extra time you can work the “no money down” deals.
it involves a lot of cold calling and talking to different motivated buyers.
if you have a day job this may not work for you.

if you can access 20-32k in cash, thats good. are there any properties in your area that you can buy for that ammount? if so, you could pay cash, fix it up, and get a home equity line of credit on the property.

I do no money down all the time. For now anyway.

What I have done is alot of networking. I have built rapports with people, people with cash. I find the deals and oversee the rehabs. They put up the money. We have a joint-venture ageement and when I sell the property we split the profits 50/50. So for me it’s a no money down. It’s not that hard and it’s definately not a gimmick.