Financial Freedom One House At A Time
I got a call from a newer investor recently, and he was about to do his first subject-to deal. That’s where you buy a house and leave the seller’s mortgage in place after closing. You then make payments on that mortgage until you either pay it off, refinance the house or sell the property. The investor was looking for some guidance on how to set up and properly…
The two main obstacles most beginner investors experience are “Where do I find a deal?” and “How do I pay for it?” This situation feels a lot like the age-old question, “What comes first — the chicken or the egg?” In order to buy a house, you need to secure funds to pay for it. But in order to secure those funds, you need to have a deal…
Making an offer is sometimes intimidating for a beginner – mainly because you’re scared the seller will accept, and you have no idea what to do next. Or you’re scared you’ll mess something up. Either way, I totally understand. But something that gave Ashley and I confidence was to realize that you aren’t contractually bound by anything just because you made an offer. An offer, is just…
I have one of those aftermarket, Bluetooth- equipped, Kenwood stereos in my truck. Since I got it, everyone in the car is privy to my phone conversations. As I drove to Cartersville with my 18-year-old helper, I got a call from an investor looking to sell his two rental properties. Consequently, Lucas got to listen in on the call. The investor had two properties, which he had…
We’re buying a house over in Adairsville — one of those buy-it-in-less-than-a-week-type deals — which means that for things to move that quickly, everything has to line up just right. We got the house under contract Sunday, hoping to close it on Friday. Monday morning, my closing attorney ordered a title search. This is important for two reasons. No. 1, you need to make sure your…
The phrase, “One size fits all,” is something that should never be applied to your contracts. It’s very important that your documents fit the individual deal you’re working on. If you get on the internet and get a generic contract, it may have verbiage in it that’s not compatible with the laws in your state. You don’t want that. Each time you write a contract, the situation…
For Ashley and me, 2012 was a big year. We became full time investors, but more importantly, it was the year we started our family. It was late December 2011, and I was painting a huge master closet in a house in Cartersville, when I received a message from Ashley with an image of a positive pregnancy test captioned “Congratulations Daddy.” With a surge of emotions, I immediately…
The other day, Ashley and I were shopping for appliances for a flip. Normally it’s not a big deal. We use the same stove, dishwasher and vent hood on almost every house. But this time, it was after Black Friday, and everything was on sale. We pointed out some different appliances we liked to the salesperson. But on each one, they tried to up-sell us. And each up-sell added…
I was recently invited to a mastermind meeting that had some pretty advanced investors in the room, one of whom was in the habit of buying tax liens – these are liens counties put against properties when homeowners don’t pay their property taxes. Counties do this so they can sell the liens at auction and recoup the funds they didn’t collect from the homeowner. This is called a tax…
We are doing our taxes right now. You may notice it’s August rather than April. Our reason for filling an extension is twofold. One, we get our accountant focused on just us instead of having to share her brain with everyone else. Two – and this is just rumor – I’ve heard you’re less likely to get audited by the IRS if you file an extension. I don’t…