Many questions
I posted a thread in the Real Estate Deal Analysis forum, meaning to post it here. I just realized this a few minutes ago after waiting all day for responses. No wonder there weren't many responses, this forum is much busier.
I'll try to sum up my concerns/questions. Forgive me for the "newbie" tone, but alas... I am a newbie. ;)
My spouse and I want to get into real estate. We live frugally in a middle class neighborhood and have 3 kids. We recently paid off all credit card debt and would like to start investing. We are both in our 30's and fear the risk of beginning to invest at this age and stage (30's, kids, very little starting capitol) but feel compelled to "go for it" anyways. My spouse is very handy and resourceful, and we thought rental property would be a good start.
Today we tried to bid on a 62K rental property (2 fam) pulling in 875 in rent. Our bid was 52K with 3% seller concession, 5% down. This would give us $200 a month beyond the mortgage. The seller said NO WAY. We are disappointed, don't know where to go from here.
In this last week we've learned a lot already. Maybe we need to look at other options for starting out. We have only 2K in savings, and I took out $3500 on a low interest credit card (4.9%)
The money is just sitting in the bank. Now we are looking into HELOC possibly to fund our first house purchase.
We are afraid to involve the house we are living in (4 BR single family in middle class neighborhood) but at the same time, want to find the best way to break into real estate.
We are serious about this whole thing. Want to get started. Are we trying to bite off too much at once? Should we save longer? I'm afraid if we wait too long, we'll chicken out.
Any advice/words of encouragement?