Commercial Real Estate Investment Articles

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.”

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 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 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.

Anyone can do this with just a little “want.” I am a full-time real estate investor. In all honesty, against what everyone told me NOT to do I did anyway. And this is where i am now.

Let me start by saying that I paid $3,400 for a “class” in real estate investing that turned out to be nothing more than a 30-minute per week phone call covering the very basics. Thankfully, the trainer mentioned several websites for self-study. CRE Online has been worth well MORE than my initial costs. Thank you for your complete guidance.

I hope my little taste of success will help other people get going on their real estate investing career. I was like most of the CRE Online visitors. I slaved over the >articles, success stories, and message boards over and over until I practically memorized them. I took notes and typed up pages of tips, strategies, other wisdom from the pros on the site.

I had a seller call on one of my signs in San Diego. The house was in a “not so great area.” I decided to set up a three-year lease option for market rent and a $30,000 discount in price.

I love to talk about real estate. I always say, “If I don’t talk about it, how will anyone know what I do?” If the person you are talking to isn’t selling right now or doesn’t know someone that is selling, they eventually will. I want my name to be the one they remember, so I can get that all important “personal reference.”

We invested $300 into signs that say “I Buy Ugly Houses” with our phone number. The very first call we got was from a guy with an abandoned house on a street we’d driven down just the week before. We couldn’t figure out how we could have missed the house because we drive around every Sunday looking for vacant properties in hopes of finding the owners.

This is my latest success story. I hope it motivates you. This story will be unbelievable to some, unlikely to others, and “I wish I found that one” to those who know it can happen.

This is for all of you lurking on this site. This is a “get off the couch” (GOTC) story for you all. Success Stories like this one got me off the couch, and I hope my story will help you.

Well, here goes! My first trial at real estate investing was a huge undertaking. My partner and I bought a gutted row house that was about 2,000 sq ft. After six months and almost every weekend, we had finally finished it. We paid $55,000 for the property and had about $80,000 in repairs for a total of $135,000 in the house.

I met with a woman in Fort Smith, AR who wanted to move back home (somewhere in Indiana), and she was very ready to leave. Her time frame to stay in the house was about a week. When I met with her, she showed me the property. It was a fairly small home with some very nice landscaping in the front yard, some rose bushes and other flowers, but inside was a different story. The floor needed replaced, the walls were studs and sheet rock, the counters all needed replaced, and it smelled foul.

I send out several postcards every month. And in Texas, November and December always seem to be the hardest months to buy foreclosure sales because the holidays and work weeks are so short.

“You can’t make money having someone else do your work!”

I’m thirty-six years old and bought my first mobile home park two years ago. It is eight acres with thirteen mobile homes and a mini-storage. I told the owner I would give her the full asking price of $200,000. I knew that would get her interest. After checking with the local banks, finding out their terms and the fact that they didn’t want to loan that much money for a small park, I asked her if she would consider owner financing.I’m thirty-six years old and bought my first mobile home park two years ago. It is eight acres with thirteen mobile homes and a mini-storage. I told the owner I would give her the full asking price of $200,000. I knew that would get her interest. After checking with the local banks, finding out their terms and the fact that they didn’t want to loan that much money for a small park, I asked her if she would consider owner financing.