Commercial Real Estate Investment Articles

I’ve seen a lot of investors miss out on huge profits because they just don’t understand how far banks will go NOT to take back a property. Banks don’t want to own real estate. Banks don’t want to have bad loans on their books. All they want is people to pay them on time and take care of the house.

The Real Estate Professional status is a designation given by the IRS based on the number of hours that you work in real estate activities versus other activities. It doesn’t mean that you have to become a real estate sales agent or broker. You don’t need to drive around showing people houses or putting out “for sale” signs.

There’s an old real estate scam going around again. New investors who don’t know better are being taken in by more experienced investors offering to help them get started investing in real estate.

This article is Step Two in the series “10 Steps to Subject to: Get Paid to Buy Pretty Houses in Nice Subdivisions.”Seems simple, doesn’t it?

I was speaking on financial intelligence a while back to a group of university professors in Singapore. At the end of the talk, one of the professors asked me:“Where did you learn about business and why do some people make more money than others?”

I sent out 250 postcards to out-of-state property owners in one zip code. Several people called back, and this one was an old 1955 Spartan mobile home in a “55 and older” mobile home park, completely set up. The guy lived in Texas and said he had power of attorney to sell it for his dad who inherited it.

This deal is a little more creative than my last deal, We Turned a We Turned a “Don’t-Wanter” into Monthly Income. But like I said before, every deal is a good deal if the price and terms are right.

Everyone who reads these success stories is lucky to have found a site like this to help them out. I learned most of my strategies by trial and error over the years and still don’t know them all.

Back again with another “I can’t believe that this fell into my lap!” Success Story. When we retired to Tennessee, the first property we bought was a 1949, 2-bed, 1-bath farm house on an acre within the city limits with a 600 square foot loft barn in good condition. The house was in good condition, and we thought that we wanted to make it our primary home by adding on and renovating.

My wife and I recently retired to Cookeville, Tennessee from Las Vegas, Nevada. We are in our late forties and decided to leave the “rat race” after twenty some years of working.

A homeowner called me and said she wanted to sell her home because they were behind on payments. She had tried to sell the property, but there was a problem with title. The property was titled to two people. The lady who owned the property had bought the property with her boyfriend, and he had passed away five years go.

Its the principle of the thing. No, it ain’t…it’s the “principal” of the thing! At some point you’re going to bang up against a situation where you decide to stand firm “on principle.”

In January 2008, I purchased a 1996 mobile home for $5,500. It was a bank repo that needed interior work. I sold it “as is” within two weeks for $12,500 cash.

I was a new investor excited and eager to make a deal and earn a little extra cash. While looking for potential investment properties in a small, South Carolina town, I noticed a large lot with an old, run-down house for sale on a busy city street.

I have been waiting a long time to tell a Success Story, but here it is! I have purchased a couple rental properties conventionally, but this was my first creative real estate deal.

When I started four years ago, I got a lot of inspiration from the Success Stories on your site. People need to know that it can be done–even in this type of market. I just closed another wholesale deal which was not as spectacular as my previous Success Story, but I made $7,000 in 33 days with a $10 deposit.

In my state, foreclosures are advertised in the “Legal Notices” section of the local newspaper, and they include the amount owed on the property.

I would like to share this success story because it has been six years in the making! I bought the Ron LeGrand “Wholesale/Retail” course in 2001. Prior to that I had done some “research” into flipping houses.

I have been investing for about 30 years, so I have lots of stories about making money on rehabs. This was an interesting one. It was a four-plex in a good location, but had been owned by a law firm. They had bought it for a tax shelter, but no one wanted to deal with repairs, managing it, or showing vacancies.

In May 2006, I learned of a property for sale by friends of the family, and I asked what they were looking for. When they told me the price, $180,000, I said I would buy it without looking at it. Since I was familiar with the area, I knew this was a huge deal.

I did three lease option deals in Alabama (although I live in California) in just a few months’ time with over $70,000 in equity! Deals #1 and #2 were bank REOs that I bought through an agent. The third came from a painter I called to give me estimates for work.

“Low income” doesn’t mean “low profit…”My wife and I got into the real estate investing business with the intention of doing two things: 1.) We want to retire early and see the world, and 2.) We want to teach our 11-year-old son from an early age the value of investing wisely while working hard to achieve his goals.

This story has been a while in coming, so forgive me if I tend to be a tad bit wordy. Yes, the title wasn’t just a headline to get you to read this story. Indeed, I am totally physically blind. No, the blind are not magic people. We don’t hear better than others, have better senses of smell, or anything else the media would have you to believe. We live the same lives you live–just in the dark.

Like many people that have come and gone and like some that still post on the mobile home forum every now and then, I bought Deals on Wheels and Making Money with Mobile Homes over a year and a half ago. I read them once; they made a lot of sense; but they went right back onto the bookshelf.

In less than ten days, I sold two of my three mobile homes for cash. For the first one, I made a purchase agreement with the seller for $1,000 on the condition that I give him ten weeks to wait for a place to open up in senior housing. I started advertising it for $4,000 cash and making a buyers list.