Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should I was talking to an investor friend, recently, who was facing a conundrum. You see, he had become very specialized in one area of real estate. And the strategy he’d been using to buy on auction platforms, do minimum rehabs and resell was no longer working. Referencing the book by Spencer Johnson M.D., my friend said, “My cheese moved.” …
I almost missed it It was about 10:30 on Saturday night. We had just put the kids down, and Ashley and I were preparing for bed. At this point, my beautiful bride was considered full term in her pregnancy at 38 weeks. She lay down in the bed only to pop right back up with a startled look on her face as she said, “Whoa! I just had a…
How can we structure this deal? In the summer of 2010, I was blessed to have a sure-enough successful husband-and-wife real estate investor team take Ashley and me under their wings. They have a passion for giving and enjoyed teaching aspiring and established investors alike on how to creatively structure deals. Without them, Ashley and I wouldn’t be where we are. That passion lives on today as they travel…
Make sure they understand People tend to naturally say “No” to things they aren’t familiar with. This is a reality real estate investor must overcome in order to get a “yes” on a creative deal structures when talking to sellers. You do that by making sure they understand what you’re proposing. Take owner carry-back financing for instance. Most people are accustomed to the idea of making payments, especially…
Man on a wire Real estate investing is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it for the faltering soul. To be successful at it, you have to be willing to ride the roller coaster while pushing forward. Take what happened to us last week for instance. As I was leaving my house after lunch on Monday, I get a call from one of the pre-foreclosure…
Subject-to deals Subject-to seems to be the new buzz-word circling through many of the real estate investor teaching arenas. That’s because in our current market, subject-to deals present a great opportunity. Before I get into that, let me explain what one is. A subject-to deal is where you buy a house from someone with a mortgage in place. Instead of getting your own loan to pay off your…
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…
I was in the middle lane of Interstate 75 about a mile south of Exit 312 heading north. I needed to meet Ashley at Exit 315. People were slowing in front of me, so I decided to merge left. I glanced left, saw nothing and began to drift into the next lane. That’s when I heard an almost immediate crunch. I whipped my truck back into the…
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…
Ashley and I recently came across a listing with “possible short sale” in the title. If you don’t know, a short sale occurs when a bank agrees to accept less than what the borrower owes on their mortgage when the property sells. This listing was intriguing to us since we haven’t seen any short sales advertised in a long time. Personally, I think short sales have almost gone…