Ward Hanigan at Orange County Real Estate Investment Club OCFIBI

[Omar Ruiz]

It's not every day we have a successful investor that's been doing it full-time for 48 year!

Since 1970 Ward Hanigan has worked in the real estate field full-time. His first real estate position was with Countrywide Funding as a field loan solicitor for 2 years. He then struck out on his own and got his real estate license. For the next 10 years he specialized in the apartment brokerage business...buying, selling, and managing apartment buildings for investors. When that market cratered in 1982 (due to excessively high interest rates) he switched gears. For the next 24 years he focused exclusively on flipping foreclosures that he bought at local, courthouse auctions (Trustee Sales). During that time he bought, fixed up, and re-sold about 500 foreclosure properties, parlaying his initial grubstake from $86K into seven figures. 

As a consequence, Ward is one of the most knowledgeable and well-known foreclosure experts in Southern California–not only due to his expertise, but more importantly, his willingness to fearlessly train newbies…in spite of any possible increase in close-by competition. He has personally trained about 1,800 individuals, one on one, on the intricacies of raising cash, title searching, rehabbing, and reselling foreclosure flippers. In addition, over the years he has taught a large number of individuals on the methodology of holding title to real estate in a title holding trust for anonymity reasons. Investors applaud Ward’s astuteness regarding privacy, but exasperated title searchers look forward to his possible retirement. 

In 2015, at the annual “I Survived Real Estate” event, the Norris Group presented Ward with the prestigious Rhony Award. The Rohny is a lifetime achievement honor for distinguished individuals that elevated the real estate investing profession with outstanding leadership, and willingness to share knowledge and work with others. The Rohny award is named in honor of the late Jim Rohn who influenced so many notable people in the sales and real estate fields. 

Throughout Ward’s career he has been a generous contributor of his specialized, real estate knowledge and expertise to innumerable investors at many of the real estate clubs in Southern California. He continues to offer private, hands-on training at his San Diego office and continues adding to his growing collection of Dingbat rental houses in California and Arizona.