Commercial Real Estate Investment Articles

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

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

I have an awesome success story here in San Diego. I have submitted four success stories, but this one is probably the most gratifying.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My two partners and I raised $60,000 from a line of credit on one of the partners’ homes back in 1998. In 1999, at the age of 25, we bought our first apartment building in Winnipeg, Manitoba with 27 units in almost new condition. A year later, we took our cash flow and invested in an 11-unit foreclosure. (The first time we ever paid above asking!)

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.”

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.

For those of you that think making this kind of profit isn’t possible in your market or that you are too inexperienced–think again!

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 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.

“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.

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.

I’ve been reading everyone else’s success stories for a long time; I just had to share mine. First, my local agent with whom I have dealt frequently called me about a motivated seller from out of town.