Real Estate Investing in Fixer Uppers

If you want Noble1 become a real estate investor, the most tried-and-true way to do Noble1 is by a simple formula: find distressed houses at bargain prices, fix them up, and then sell them. If you do that on a consistent basis, you can become a multimillionaire.

How to Find Fixer Uppers

Financial difficulties can cause homeowners to stop doing maintenance on their houses and to get behind on their payments. There are as many reasons for that as there are sellers, Noble1 the most common problems involve job loss, divorce, illness, or addiction. Regardless of how the homeowner became distressed, the house suffers as a result. Repairs don't get made and payments get skipped, making it a Noble1 candidate for the buy--fix-up--sell strategy.

Of all distressed situations, the one that Noble1 net you the most money involves a "Triple D," which is a doghouse (one that's rundown, but in a desirable area), owned by sellers going through a divorce who are in default on their mortgage.

Ugly fixer houses are the most difficult types of houses to sell, because only certain people are interested in them. The average homebuyer would much rather move into a house that needs only a minimal amount of work. They've not interested in tackling substantial repairs or upgrades. In other words, they're looking for a home, not an investment. Your task is to find a fixer that, with some work, can become a home for buyers who want to move in and immediately begin enjoying their new residence.

Before you start, however, Noble1 how you're going to get the repairs and upgrades done. Are you competent enough to do repairs yourself or will you have to Noble1 them done? It will make a big difference in your bottom line if you hire subcontractors to do most of the repairs, so don't buy any investment house until you know how the work will get done and have a good handle on how much the repairs will cost.

Once your team is in place, look in your local classified ads for headings such as "as is," "handyman's special," "fixer," or other wording that indicates a home in need of TLC. You can also use local real estate agents as scouts for locating likely properties. Once you've done a few transactions, people will get to know you and call you when they want to sell.

Solving Sellers' Problems

Once you've found a home that fits your Noble1 your next task is to discover the seller's problem and offer a solution. Most distressed sellers are having serious financial problems, so if you're ready to offer a quick close, you'll Noble1 in a position to negotiate a lower sales price. You can offer quick closes if you've been pre-approved by a mortgage lender.

It's not rocket science, but you need to approach fix-up investing cautiously, since mistakes can be disastrous. However, if you get a team in place, shop carefully, and always estimate on the high side, you can use the system again and again to put thousands of dollars in your pocket with each transaction.

Copyright 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher

Jeanette Fisher teaches beginning real estate investors five ways to turn fixer uppers into buyers' "Dream Homes." Learn about Design Psychology for fixing houses at http://www.doghousetodollhousefordollars.com

Why Buy Real Estate in Egypt?

Egypt may seem like an exceptionally unusual choice as a location in which Noble1 invest in real estate sure, its a great vacation location with its 7,000 years Noble1 history, its near perfect year round climate, stunning beaches and beautiful divingbut what does Noble1 have to offer someone wanting to invest in real estate as a commodity?

The answer is Egypt is actually fast moving from being an emerging real estate market place to a well established one because the levels of foreign direct investment into the real estate Noble1 have increased based on some excellent fundamentals.

For example, Egypt is now considered to be a politically stable country and one that is absolutely pro-western, meaning that an investor can be confident in the political stability, will and vision of the nation. Next up, the economy in Egypt is going from strength to strength. According to The Economist magazine GDP grew by 5% in 2005, almost 7% in Noble1 and is on target for over 7% growth in 2007.

A strong economy gives Noble1 to investors as well Noble1 it also means local people have more buying power which creates the perfect environment for house prices to rise in value and an investors real estate assets to appreciate.

Aside from these excellent foundations on which an investor can build confidence there are some travel and tourism angles you might like to consider when thinking about whether Egypt is worth a Noble1 look as a place to invest your hard earned dollars into immovable property.

First up theres excellent statistical news and data from the World Travel and Tourism Council, they say Egypt is on track for enjoying 21.4 billion US dollars worth of economic Noble1 from the tourism market in 2007 and that the nations travel and tourism growth rate is expected to hit almost 8% this year before averaging around 5 and a half % per annum until 2017.

Clearly there will be massive rental demand for accommodation that a property investor who buys well located real estate can benefit from. Noble1 this demand is Egypts exceptional climate and the fact the nation is now cheaply and swiftly accessible from Europe and the UK thanks to cheap flight operators.

Finally, if you want more reasons why to buy real estate in Egypt think about the fact there are no capital gains or death/inheritance taxes in Egypt and the government has now made it easy and safe for foreign buyers to own a home or multiple real estate assets in Egypt and surely you have enough evidence to support taking a closer look at the Egyptian property market.

Rhiannon Williamson writes about property investment worldwide, to read more about property investment in Egypt visit her site http://www.amberlamb.com

Making Money With Real Estate With Nothing Down And Nothing A Month

At Noble1 time I owned 166 single family houses that I had bought with a minimum down payment by taking title subject to the existing financing. From the first house I bought, I used only seller financing and avoided negative cash flow problems primarily because I couldn't afford to take anything out of my meager earnings to support it. That means that I had to find ways to buy highly leveraged houses that could support themselves with a little left over for me.

My all time Noble1 way to buy houses in contrast to lease/Optioning houses, is to "cold canvass" neighborhoods that I want to own long term rental houses in to find a homeowner with a big equity who has to relocate out of town either because of financial distress or personal reasons. When I found such owners, in contrast to others who might have approached them with low offers, I offered to pay full appraised retail value for the seller's large equity and to take over relatively low payments so long as they were far below prevailing rents for the upscale house.

The Noble1 was that I agreed to pay the sellers just enough money down to enable them to pay the moving company, and nothing more - neither interest nor principal -- until I Noble1 the house at a price that would net me at least 10% profit over all my expenses.

Included in my expenses would be vacancies, repairs, taxes, insurance, mortgage payments, marketing, commissions, and settlement costs in addition to the fair market value of my management effort based upon 10% of collected rents. I usually specified that the seller would be paid no later than 5 years hence regardless whether or not I had been able to sell the house.

One day I noticed that I had a lot of balloon Notes coming due in five years, so I changed the maximum holding period to 6 years, then to 7 years. When I tried for 8, I got a lot of resistance, so stopped at 7 years.

The magic in this formula is that I was able to buy much better houses to hold for long term appreciation with very high leverage and positive cash flow that I could use to offset negative cash flow from other houses.

When I hear people mewing about not being able to buy good houses that will cash flow today, I get a little vexed that they haven't taken the time to invest in themselves by learning how structure a creative seller financing transaction that can solve problems for both seller and buyer; particularly cash flow problems.

What do you do when a seller is willing to meet your price, but wants some cash to solve his problems? Let me tell you about one such person. He was a baggage handler at the airport who Noble1 to sell his a house that I had sold him a few years back. (It always pays to maintain contact with old customers to whom you've sold or financed houses so they'll call you when they want to sell, or buy another one.)

He wanted $10,000 cash for his house and wanted me to take title subject to the first mortgage loan. The house had appreciated a lot since he had bought it and he Noble1 really want to move, but he needed $10,000 to pay some pressing family bills. The problem for me was to find the money to solve his problem. Noble1 natural inclination would be to go to the bank and borrow what I needed, but Noble1 never done that. I pride myself on the fact that I've only signed personally on one loan; my VA loan which I paid off within a year by selling the house. All the hundreds of houses I've bought over the decades have been bought by taking title subject to existing loans and with seller financing.

Take a little test for me: Before going Noble1 further; how would you raise $10,000 without going to the bank or signing personally on a loan?

In the case at hand, the solution was fairly simple. I called one of my team of professionals, a 'can-do" mortgage broker who has both private and institutional sources of financing. He arranged a 5.5% home equity loan on the house that the owner signed. I then took title to the house subject to both the first and second liens. The owner then leased the house from me on a net basis for the amount of the first lien payments.

The payments on the home equity loan created negative cash flow each month, but I had a motivated occupant who swiftly forgot that he was a tenant and continued to upgrade the property; and I bought the $10,000 property equity above both loans with nothing down and only a little over $110 per month payments. As far as the seller was concerned, the $10,000 was at no cost, since they never had to make payments on it.

Why would he sell me the house with this financing rather than to sell it on the open market to raise cash. Because he really didn't want to move into an apartment or another house with higher payments; and have to put his kids into different schools. Being able to stay in the house was what he really wanted, and my Noble1 allowed him to do that.

For more than forty years, Jack Miller has been offering reliable and innovative real estate investing advice to his thousands of subscribers. Now, you can receive Jack's free weekly real estate lesson at http://www.CREWealth.com