Joanne Musa asked:


My main wealth building strategy has been investing in tax liens. Now I love investing in tax liens for lots of reasons. You can watch a short video about Why Invest in Tax Lien Certificates on my web site at TaxLienLady.com. But I’ve always wanted to be a real estate investor. Regardless of what you may have seen on a late night infomercial, tax lien investing is a great wealth building strategy but it’s not a good way to purchase real estate. In my experience a tax lien on a good piece of property will almost always redeem. That means that you don’t get to foreclose on the property. What you do get is a great interest rate on your money.

The problem with investing in real estate as a wealth building strategy for me has been that usually you need a lot of money, so I’ve been researching ways to purchase real estate without having to put down a lot of money. After all, I’m used to investing small amounts of money at a time – in tax liens.

We finally did purchase our first investment property. We bought it at a real estate auction and got a great price. But what a rude awakening when we went to get the financing! Things have really changed in the past few months when it comes to getting a loan. Sure there are still some great programs out there for first time home buyers and even for people who are not first time buyers, but are purchasing a home to live in. The problem is that banks do not really want to lend to investors.

Fortunately my husband and I have a really good mortgage broker and a good credit scores, but we still had to put 20% down in order to secure a mortgage on this property. Last time we applied for a loan on an investment property (on a house that we ultimately decided not to purchase), we only had to put 10% down and we were able to lock into an interest rate 1% lower than what we were able to get now. And that was only about four months ago.

Because we intend to purchase more than one investment property, we realize that we’ll have to find another way to buy properties other than getting a conventional mortgage. Now I’ve been to various real estate trainings for different methods of purchasing real estate. I’ve taken trainings from different experts on short sales, subject to deals, foreclosures, etc. But I haven’t actually purchased a deal using any of these methods. Most of them, except for purchasing property “subject to,” require that you have some cash, which I won’t have after we close on this property. So my focus now is to purchase investment property without using my own cash and without bringing in other investors.

Even though I have taken courses on how to purchase property “subject to” the current mortgage, the method that I learned did not really work in my state so I abandoned this method before I even tried it. Then I heard a tele-training with Wendy Patton on lease options and subject to deals on REIBlueprints.com. I wanted to listen to the training because we intended to sell the property that we’re purchasing using a lease option, and I thought that was what this training was about. But it was actually about how to purchase properties using lease options and subject to deals without having to put any money down.

Wendy was awesome! I just had to have her training course that consisted of 4 separate real estate investing courses: Buying with Lease Options, Selling on Lease Options, Working with Realtors, and Taking the Deed Subject To. Wendy offered these 4 courses and personal coaching with her for under $1000. I jumped at the opportunity to purchase this because I had spent more than twice at much for just one of those courses from other real estate gurus. The good news is that if you act now you can still listen to Wendy’s free tele-training with REIBlueprints.com, and get in on this special offer, but hurry because I don’t know how long this offer will last.



La Mirada Real Estate

Mark G. Estates asked:


A lot of people these days are preaching about the buying and holding method of gaining wealth with real estate. There indeed may come a time in your life or business when you’ll want to hang on to a piece of property, although you’ll only be interested in keeping certain types of property. If you’re just starting out, flipping a house may be an ideal way to get started.

Basically, there are three ways that you can flip a house, although each one has its own terms, motivation, and type of property. The first method is known as retailing. What this means, is that you buy a house in bad shape, do the repairs to fix it up, then turn around and sell it. There are a variety of houses in need of repairs out there, and several ways that you can quickly flip a house to net profit. All you need to know are the techniques that will get you the most money in the least amount of time.

The second way you can flip a house is though wholesaling. Wholesaling involves finding a home for sale then flipping it to an investor for a fast, yet small profit. To do this, you’ll need to know the real estate investors in your area, the types of homes that flip the best, and how to fund your property so you can flip it to them. If you live in a big area or a city, you’ll find that using the wholesaling method of flipping houses is actually easier to accomplish.

The third way to flip a house is by assigning the purchase. Using this method, you’ll commit to buy the house. Instead of closing the deal yourself, you’ll assign it to a real estate investor – of course for a small fee. The investor will take the contract over and close the purchase themselves – flipping the house. This can be very profitable, especially if you invest in the right home. You don’t need to have your contract worded any special way to be legal, although you will need to determine the assignment fee.

If you’re looking to break into the real estate market and make big bucks, you’ll need to learn all about flipping houses. Flipping houses is very profitable, especially once you have learned the basics. The first and third methods are the best, although they will both take quite a bit of work on your part. Restoring homes isn’t easy, and you’ll need to have a team qualified to handle any repairs. Assigning the purchase may be difficult when you first start out, although it will get easier with time. If you stay at it and do your best to make a profit – you’ll be an expert at flipping homes in no time at all.



La Mirada Real Estate