hello everyone. I am very new to investing and just little lost or where to begin or how to begin. i read some of the articles and they are helpful but im still i little lost. Im a 23 year old young man tring to make a living for me and my future wife. we have no kids and we know that real estate investing can take us far in life.we are willing to put in the time to work but we just need help or where to start. we are in the southern CA area. can anyone give us some advice. Thank you all. Have a blessed day.
i am 23 and work a part time job that pays 12/hr. and my wife is the same. we dont have more than 500 dollars saved up so its realy hard.my credit is bad due to someone stealing my identity and doing crazy things and my wifes is around low 600s maybe even lower, and we dont know anyone in real esate or even thinks of investing. we had to get away from the negative thinkers. everyone wants to work until the 65 at a job but we cant do that. thats why we are taking action now. is there a chance for us to make it in this business. thanks
You can do this business. This business is ultimately a business of credit. All the tape and book crowd advertise as to how you can do this with no cash and no credit. The reason they do that is that is the largest market to sell tapes and books. That is like saying you can marry a super model if you are ugly and fat. Of course you can, but it is difficult. The people that do well in this business, the people that control millions of dollars of real estate have credit.
I would get my credit report cleared of the fraud, and then work on getting my score up to 650 minimum. With that score you can buy anything you want.
As far as credit repair goes. I took my FICO from 535 to 680 in two yrs. All I did was pay off what I owed and made ontime payments for 2 yrs. Being 23, you have a good amount of time to turn things around. Also during that time, you can work on saving up as much as you can. You’d be suprised at how how much you save when you put your mind to it. That’s what I did. I’ve read a lot of books on RE investing. There are only a few that really stand out to me. I suggest buying " The Millionare Real Estate Investor" by Gary Keller. He not only has a common sense approach to real estat investing, but he goes in to managing your money so you always have money to invest. It’s probably the best $25 I’ve ever spent.
thank you for that info. i know i would be better off with a good score but i dont have it, my mom has a 820 scored but is scared to do any thing with it. i try to talk to her but never get through. and im going to get the book asap. i would like to buy some property and get this business going but it seems like things keep happening. for a person like me with no credit an no cash how do i buy a house. i want to do this business and im dedicated to putting in the time i just need to get my foot through the door and walk through
for a person like me with no credit an no cash how do i buy a house. i want to do this business and im dedicated to putting in the time i just need to get my foot through the door and walk through
You will NOT succeed in this business with no cash and no credit. You say that you are willing to put in the time. If that’s really the case, then you and your girlfriend need to work HARD to clear up your credit and build up a little cash BEFORE you invest in anything. There are 168 hours in a week. That’s plenty of time for both you and your girlfriend to work two full time jobs each and still have over half of the week left. If you’re serious about being successful in this business, that is the price of admission.
Good Luck,
Mike
Welcome…spend some time reading through this awesome forum to see which strategies appeal to you. Attend your local REIA meeting(s) and network with others. Anyone with the right mindset (and action to back that up) can succeed in this or any other business.
Chris
thanks for that info. so it all depends on cash and credit. ok me and my girlfriend are going to work hard on fixing our credit and saving some cash. we are gonna move out this year and the question that comes to our mind should we just get an apt for now since we dont have much cash and credit or just try and buy a place of our own.
If I were you I would rent a place on a lease-option. At the end of the year you should have enough seller credit built up to purchase a home using a FHA first time home buyer program. That will give you a year or so to help repair your credit and at the same time a portion of the rent you are paying is going to purchase the house. If your rent is say $1000/mth and you do a lease-option where 30% goes toward your down payment on the house, you’re banking $300/mth, or $3,600/yr towards buying a house. If you leased it for two years (this is what I did) then you are setting with $7,200 at the end of two years. I bought my house using an FHA program that required only 3% down. Voila, I had that in seller credits. On a $200,000 home that meant I needed $6,000 (3% of $200k). I think the key to REI is getting your first home. Or living in one half of a duplex or triplex. You can get the same type of financing for a multi-unit if you live in one of the units. Essentially you could be living for free, or almost free, because of the payments coming from the other tenants in your building.
In REI you need purchase power, and that comes in the form of your credit score, as you’ve been made aware of here. If the reason you’re score is down is because of ID theft that’s something that can be fixed in a matter of months, certainly not years. I had this happen to a friend, you’re going to need to get police reports, court filings and motions, etc. You’ll have to go through the steps and the creditors are probably going to make you feel like you’re lying and not a victim but keep plugging forward and it will get taken care of. Document EVERYTHING!
so it all depends on cash and credit.
Cash can be created from using your good credit. You don’t need cash to start. But if you don’t have any you need to create it somehow in your first one or two deals. I purchased and closed on a property a week or so ago and walked away with $38k at closing, that’s nice.
that sounds good, i didnt know to much about lease options but im going to do more homework about the topic and learn as much as i can. its good to know that if your renting the place that some of your own money can go towards purchasing the property later. i guess you thats a great option for my situation. and the duplex does sound good because the other tenants would be paying also.thanks for that idea.i am going to take that into consideration. and good job one the 38k at closing. i would love to get there some day. that would mean that i could take a couple of months off from my job, well maybe a year off because i dont make that in one year yet. thats why im wanna put more time an effort in something like real estate, because the outcome is tremendous if you succeed.while im studying on lease option is there another topic that i should read along with it.
Branden
Branden,
Just another thought. I got the idea of how to fix my credit by talking with the mortgage underwriter at my local bank. Before that talk, I was under the impression that it was gonna take up to 7 yrs. He told me exactly what I told you. Unlesss there is a lot of false data in your credit report that you can dispute, you have to pay your dues. It’s actually a good thing because you won’t tak eyour credit for granted again. So bust your buts raising money to pay off your debts and your bills on time. Read boks, join RE/landlord associations and save money. The deals will still be around 2 yrs. from now. The difference will be that you’ll be better prepared mentally & financially to spot and take advantage of them. Good luck. I wish I had done this when I was 23!!! :banghead :banghead :banghead :banghead
thanks, it does make perfect sense. start saving and correcting.it seems like it will take forever tring to save making only 12 an hour but i got to make it work. i just wish i new other options of making cash outside of work. i know now i got to manage my money and time more and schedule more. im going to put my full efforts in it. thanks
Branden