Commercial Real Estate Investment Articles

This letter is long overdue. However, it’s partly your fault for providing such an excellent workshop on creative financing [How to Get Lenders Fighting to Give You Money]

A few months ago, I was looking at the CRE Online website because I have always been interested in real estate investing. There are always several very interesting articles and ideas with which to make money investing in real estate.

I started educating myself about real estate investing in mid-2000, almost entirely by studying CRE Online. I created a Sub-S corporation in June 2001 and started marketing in the local paper with “We Buy Houses” ads in July. Had a lot of calls and finally settled on two deals.

Ed Garcia and Terry Vaughan, This letter is long overdue. However, it’s partly your fault for providing such an excellent workshop on creative financing [How to Get Lenders Fighting to Give You Money].

Dear JP and Terry: I thought I would send you a short note. You are always asking for comments and Success Stories. I have been visiting CRE Online for about a year now. I am an American civilian who has lived and worked in Germany for the last 33 years. I love this site. The information is priceless. There is something for everyone.

My wife, Deb (who has sold real estate for over 15 years), and I have had so many “light bulb” moments over that past six months reading CRE Online and www.RichDad.com that we just about can’t stand it. But we’ll try.

First of all I would like to say “thank you” for such a great site to share and gather information on such a great business.

My partners and I have been searching for handyman specials since late August. After looking at about 40 or 50 properties we ran into a junker that was a bank REO. The property had been on the market for two months when we found it. The price of the property was reduced from $44,900 to $38,900.

Although I have dropped by the CRE Online website every now and then, I have never submitted anything. I am a fence-sitter who has enjoyed some success at real estate investing and also got a little big headed and suffered through a couple of deals that proved to be less than profitable.

I just wanted to tell you about the deal that I got yesterday. A motivated seller has a house in great area in my community.

Over the past ten years, I had “successfully” built up an aviation facilities management business. After ten years of hard work, in February of 2001, my wife and I decided it was time to “start taking money off the table.” That is to say, after ten years of reinvesting in the business, it was time to take some money out and put it into other investments like real estate.

First of all I would like to say “thank you” for such a great site to share and gather information on such a great business.

I purchased a home last year from a motivated seller for $500. He was losing the house to back taxes in two days, and the home was badly in need of major repairs. I knew very little about real estate investing then, but after paying the $2,600 back taxes and spending $7,600 in repairs, I proceeded to find a buyer who is paying me $35,000 for the house.

Picture this: A new investor with $15K college savings for kids learns about buying a second as the way to get a foreclosed property. He finds a vacant foreclosed property with a second note, takes kids’ college money (First kid going to college within a year. No problem; I’ll be in and out in 3 months), and buys the second.

I have gained many things from your site (knowledge about real estate investing, wisdom on dealing with people, courage to do a deal) that helped me do my first deal. I wanted to say “Thank you.” I am now working on deal number two. I wanted to pass on my success story on deal number one. Here goes:

Here is a deal I did that made me a nice bit of pocket change. I went to see a house where the lady had seemed mighty motivated over the phone. But, after sitting with her and explaining the details of how I could help her, we both determined that she was not motivated.

I just closed on a 1.23 acre parcel that I have been negotiating to buy for the last five or six weeks. The owner had agreed to a price of $8,000 ($2,000 down and $250 per month for 24 months with 0% interest, which Ernest Tew helped me structure).

I have been limping along with my 15 rentals for a while now. I also make good money for a corporation buying and selling electricity nationwide in realtime. It’s the adrenaline I like. So I still have my 50 hour/week job. I haven’t bought a property in 4 years–until this month.

I’ve netted over $30,000 after all expenses from my real estate investing business, wholesaling real estate in last six months just doing part time with my regular job. Not looking to “toot my horn” here in a success story.

Wow, where do I begin. I had a friend that had a property he bought at auction for $13,100. It was 1.3 acres of land with a well and septic on it. He was a friend of the family that had to sell it (estate auction).

My original plan was to buy and keep two or three rental properties per year for five years, for cash flow and equity growth. I was determined to find a property (or two) that would need a few cosmetic fixes for a few thousand dollars, in a good area, close to home, for a decent price, place decent tenants, and hold.

Since I wrote about the $27,000 Profit on My First Real Estate Deal, my opportunities have been growing. I’ve kept the three properties that I had purchased while I anxiously awaited the sale of that first deal. And in ONLY two months, since that sale, I’ve closed on the additional four properties that I mentioned were under contract, got another under contract, and BEST of all–got approved for a credit line!

Finding good deals really is the hardest part of this business, but sometimes, just by keeping your eyes open, one falls in your lap. That’s how I found my first deal, and here’s the story

Back in August, I moved my family to Billings, Montana from South Texas. As soon as I arrived I started riding the speed bumps, looking for mobile homes. I called on a manager of a mobile home park I drove by every day and inquired about any mobile homes for sale. I explained to her what I did, and she didn’t hesitate and gave the name and number of a gentleman wanting to sell his mobile home.

One day on my way home, I decided to take a different road to my house, and I came across a overgrown house (actually a jungle), with numerous violations from the county posted on the door.The house needed some work on the outside, but it wasn’t that bad. I could not see the inside.