Your rate of savings have to match your area of investment. Yes, I've listened to these podcasts where you can use a credit card to buy out a mortgage/piece of property for 800 dollars; I can pretty much assure you that these are about as viable and frequent as sighting the dodo bird in the NYC market.
The traditional route is 20% down 80% finance, , gives you about 500k purchasing power with 100k down.
Foreclosed homes generally require a cash payment; if you don't know any special lending partners who can bridge loan you that amount, your going to have to find some way to come up with the whole amount.
The chances of finding a foreclosed multi for 150k in the boston area.... see dodo bird reference.
If saving up 20-30k would take years, you have to start with some less likely choices in the investment world- 1. Work smarter (i.e. get a higher paying job to make more money) 2. work harder (work more hours/work more jobs) . Getting a RE license and selling homes is a great way to make some extra money (commission) while getting to see properties and neighborhoods.
Cut expenses. Eat healthy, but don't eat out. There's a formula I use for whether to buy, make, or do myself; If I can make more money doing something else, then I buy. If I can make more money by fixing it or doing it myself, then I do it. You have 24 hours in a day. Assume you sleep 8, 2 for hygiene and bodily actions, a regular 8 hour job, leaves you with a total of 6 hours of "free" time; which then you must subtract every other part of your day; commuting, grocery shopping, laundry, etc.
Now if you can use those 6 hours to make money that you would otherwise save, it make sense.
Here is some good info from somewhere else (in 2013):
"It's Literally Not Worth His Time to Pick Up a Dropped $100 Bill From the Ground. With a worth of $72 billion, a 6% rate of return would earn Gates roughly $114.16 per second he is alive, making it a poor investment for Bill Gates to bother picking up a $100 bill if he dropped it"
People who live in NYC (manhattan) pay huge rents/taxes etc; but their savings of 2 hours a day commuting is 2 hours more of making money; whether it be more relaxed, or more profitable. They dry clean their shirts and send out their laundry. Its cheaper than doing it themselves.They have a doorman receive it for them and put it in their apartment; it would cost them more money to pick it up themselves. They don't do their own oil changes. They don't even clean their own homes. They don't decide whats for dinner, or even cook dinner, unless its fun for them, because they hire a personal chef to take care of it. The nanny takes care of the kids. They take charter flights, because showing up 3 hours early for a flight is just a waste of time and money. They take a car service or have a personal driver because finding parking and focusing their brain on driving takes away from their profitability.
While that is a bit extreme, time management, and the ability to decide where money should be spent, and where time is BETTER spent is one of those "7" habits of successful people.
