Can I get rich in real estate?

Factual Questions
21

Yes - you can buy property with bad credit and make money off of it by selling however you gotta have cash.

A friend of mine is actually investigating strategy on doing just that, however she’s only looking at properties that are on the Foreclosure lists via the county.

From what she’s told me, if you miss 1 mortgage payment (at least in Cook County, IL) your home automatically goes on the forcosure list and you can get it off if you make good on that payment within 30 days. Each home owner and their contact information is on that list along with the property and the address.

My friend is looking into buying property from the people who are on the 1 missed payment list (most of the time they just can’t afford to make the payments any longer because of illness, layoffs, bit off more than they could chew, etc.). She offers to buy the property from the owner (in essence take the remainder of the payments off that person’s hand) in cash with 10 to 15 thousand extra so that person has money to either put a downpayment on something else or at least get some money for their trouble, and then she assumes ownership of the property.

Here in the Chicago area where real-estate prices are out of control, she could feasibly buy something directly from the owner for $100,000 in Lincoln Park and then re-sell it to a real estate developer for 3 times that - everyone makes money (at least in theory).

Like I say - for this to work, you gotta have cash. My friend can do it because she doesn’t necessarily have cash, but she does own her home and can take out an equity loan or take out another mortgage to get the cash she needs. If the house she buys is bought and sold within a couple months at most, she can pay back the loan with minimal interest.

22

It sounds like you’re saying that if you don’t make a payment for 60 days, you lose your house. Color me skeptical, but this sounds unlikely. First, it seems like this would be a banking decision, not a county decision, so each bank would have its own policy. Secondly, it’s not in a bank’s interest to foreclose on a house; they’d much rather the owner continue to make the payments than to have to foreclose. I think you’d be more likely to get a lot of warnings and calls from the bank’s collections department over several months before they’d start foreclosure proceedings.

23

Hi Opal! [sub]I’ve always wanted to say that.[/sub]

There is good information and bad information in the above posts.

The answer to your question is yes, you can indeed buy property with zero down. No it is not that easy, it takes a whole lot of homework to find property on those terms.

While I have not taken any high dollar seminars, I have read many, many books on the subject and I highly recomend you doing the same before you do one of the seminars.

What you are looking for is what is refered to as “don’t wanters”. That is, folks that want out of their property so bad that they are willing to take almost any terms and that usually means that they are willing to carry the paper (mortgage). There can be very many reasons why people no longer want to be property owners, moving out of the area, depressed sales, distressed property, etc.

While you can actually purchase property with no money down, you usually do have to give something as a guarantee of payment. This is usually other property that you own equity in, and is refered to as “paper”. What it boils down to is offering your paper, instead of cash to leverage the deal.

For instance, if you own your home or substantial equity in it and you are willing to risk it for gain, you have paper to invest.

As described by other posters, there are two main ways to get a return on your investment, flippers and rentals. Either way you should be adept at and enjoy making home repairs or know someone who is and will do excellent work on the cheap.

I have done it both ways and had success with both, but I cannot stress the homework enough. It also helps if you have access to some cash.

You Can do it Opal, just start reading!

24

Only if you get your real estate from daddy. Or mommy if that be the case.

Did you ever think why people do these shows? Because they want to share their wealth? Then why not do them for free?

Wanna buy a bridge?

25

Each year our paper prints a list of people who haven’t paid their property taxes & they put their property up for sale. Its a fun way to get them cheap. One local person bought someones local driveway doing this…