I live in PA. In my area and surrounding, there are two investment companies who have billboards saying “we buy houses”. I actually used work for them…they locate distressed properties and owners, end up buying the houses for super cheap, then very quickly fixing up and selling, all within a month.
Also in my area are seminars on the radio, offering free items to come to their seminar to sell their real estate investing stuff, so all of these new bandit signs are everywhere now with all the new soldiers out there trying to buy properties.
So I have experienced competition, and plenty of new investors.
Another thing…I have some cash, but honestly I don’t want to use it, if it’s possible. If I don’t have to put my 50k on the line to attempt to invest in real estate, I don’t want to. I’d rather keep it as a back up if something goes wrong.
I have pretty good credit, in the 750 range.
Knowing all of these things…what would be my (your experienced opinion…how would YOU do it) path to success, following the above criteria? Possible to be successful?
What do you want to do. Real Estate is not a thing. It is multiple things. Do you want rental property, do you want to flip houses, do you want to flip contracts?
No risk…no goodies! You need money and/or credit to invest in real estate…it doesn’t necessarily need to be your own money or your own credit. Regardless, there are risks. How you calculate or manage those risks will determine your level of success.
Buy low, sell high, and use other people’s money…then manage it like it was your own savings, and you will likely succeed.
If I was in your shoes i would take some time to go through the different ways of investing.
I guess 3 of the most popular one’s would be:
Wholesale - Get a property at around %50 of the value and find a buyer willing to pay more - You keep whats in-between.
Wholesale/makeover - Get a property at around %50 of the value, rehab the place and find a buyer willing to pay more - you keep what’s in-between your total cost and sales price. Aka if you pay $50.000 for a house and spent $15.000 to rehab and sell it for $85.000, you make around $20.000.
Buy to Rent - Buy to rent is usually about getting good casd flow, If you can find a good property and get a decent mortgage on it, it could be a way to make money, however in my experience this works better if you have some cash on the line for initial down payment.