Investor Tips and Real Estate
You Must Have Reserves to Be Good Investor
You can not buy good investment property in the metro area without reserves.! That is, if you want to make a nice $10,000 to $40,000 profit on every house you buy! Solid homes for sale in the Arlington, Mansfield and Fort Worth metro areas that I locate for my clients are going to require an additional $4,000 to $25,000 to upgrade them into nice marketable homes – for a nice $10,000 to $40,000 profit.
I can tell you first hand that you need to have your financing all done before you go out and start looking at homes. Carleton Sheets “lied”…you gotta have some money!
And here’s why… there are only about 5-15 homes every week in the entire Tarrant County market that offer “owner carry” financing. Of these, only one or two will offer 100% financing .
Unfortunately, these owners aren’t desperate – so you’re not getting a very good deal on their house to begin with! Trust me here - forget about buying homes with “creative financing” – as the only thing you’re going to buy is someone else’s financial mistake. There is no such thing as $0 money down and no reseves for repair on good investment property in the Arlington, Mansfield and Fort Worth metro area. Carleton Sheets and all his infomercial buddies made all their money doing seminars - not Real estate and homes for sale These are the facts. I’d love to sell you 10 houses for $0 down next week – but it’s not going to happen.
The reality of the matter is that the best buys in town (Banks, Pre-forclosures and distressed sellers) are going to require regular ordinary financing, not infomercial “smoke & mirrors” financing. This is because these desperate home sellers are “under the gun” to sell their houses fast - before the bank forecloses or they have to declare bankruptcy. Desperate sellers cannot sell for anything but cash or a new loan from a new buyer! They can’t do owner carry financing, because they need to “unload” their house as fast as possible (or, if the banks already own them – banks only accept cash or a new loan to buy REO property.) These are the types of Mansfield, Arlington and Fort Worth Real Estate that ispresented to my clients. You must have taditional financing to buy them.
How to Plan for Profit with Foreclosures
Now, if your goal is to make a nice profit in real estate investing, then you’ve got to purchase homes like the very successful investors do. Here are my personal rules and recommendations to buying investment homes as a guideline to help you understand buying homes in the Arlington, Mansfield and Fort Worth marketplace for a nice profit:
a) Don’t begin looking at homes until someone experienced tells you all about financing non-owner occupied homes loans.
You can borrow money (with a 2nd mortgage/home equity line of credit) from your current homes’ equity to buy an investment home, but don’t do that until you talk to a very good Realtor/lender first – as you might need more money in reserves for repair and acquisition.
b) You may potentially may be required to do some remodeling and updating on any house you buy, so plan on potentially having to do tthe following in whole or part:
Removing some old wallpaper
Painting the whole interior
Paying to have new carpet put in
New kitchen cabinets
Counter tops updated
Laying new linoleum/tile floors in the kitchen & bathrooms
Putting in new sinks
Vanities
Faucets
Toilete
Major Mechanicals / About a dozen smaller things to make the house look nice
This remodeling should cost you about $4,000-$15,000 in real expenses at Home Depot, Lowe’s and the carpet store – excluding the cost of labor to actually complete it.
The most intelligent of investors always have enough cash and financing available – as you never want to get yourself into a bad financial situation. If you like high-risk real estate investing, then you probably want to find another Realtor to help you, as most of my clients like to sleep well at night! So do I.
I do lots of creative financing for myself and my clients – but if you want to become a truly successful real estate investor, then you need to do it intelligently with a level of caution and that’s why my clients hire me to help them get financing done first – and then I find them great distress sale home for sale
Now, once you have your financing, we can actually go out and find some fantastic deals on Arlington, Mansfield and Fort Worth area homes for sale. Be very careful when you start working with a Realtor to make sure they understand everything involved in locating and financing these homes.
I’ll show you how to figure out how much remodeling you need to do on all the properties we look at, so you’ll maximize your profits – and help you sell the homes the faster. If you’re looking for rental homes, I’ll show you how to find them and update them so you can get more money for rent and I’ll help show you how to find the best tenants for your rentals
If you work with me on financing and buying distress homes, then you’ll see that buying and selling real estate is a lot of fun…and not very stressful. Call or me at 817-690-9296 – and we’ll talk about your specific situation!
Contact Us
* Indicates a Required Field.