All Forum Posts by: Will Barnard

I never joke about drinks or burgers from In & Out. I am in Matty!

There are many aspects to RE investing and in order to be successful, you need to focus on one or two of them and get very educated on them before jumping in.
BP is a great place to start that education.

Your wish is our command Josh!

I like it. I will write up the contract, "Smell with Option to Purchase"
Should we have a $100 or $200 earnest $ deposit?

Well for one, you can't just pick any house on any street, wait 6 months and sell fro $100k profit. The buy, fix and flip strategy is very difficult to accomplish in this market.
The buy and hold strategy is where you need to be right now, buying low and holding until the right time to sell, which could be 5 or 7 or even 10 years from now.
The lending market has changed dramatically as well. Your dog can no longer apply for the stated income loan he got for $500,000 a few years ago. Now you must give your first born and your right arm to qualify and even then they may still say no. They may say yes today and no tomorrow. Point being, you need to adjust strategies to look for alternative financing methods such as partners, private $ lenders (IRA, 401k, home equity, disgruntled stock market investors, etc)

The other changes made (in my situation) was that I had to go out of state to find deals and create cash flow. Not very practical here in CA, at least not for the last 6 years or so.

Chris,

My new business:
Order your Double Double Animal Style (or 4X 4 for the big eaters) from me and it will be shipped right to your door.
Bet you can taste it now!

Damn, now I'm hungry again. Time to go down the street to my In & Out.

Mike takes a hard-nosed, fast rule approach to this subject and does not deviate from it as you can see (or read).

As Harrison mentioned, there are ways of talking and negotiating to help reduce or even avoid large and heavy repair problems from tenant damage. It was a good point as well.

Either way, I think the majority here has agreed that giving cash for keys is NOT the way to go, unless you want to be the nice (and poor) landlord that Harrison eluded to.

MIke,
The two you mentioned are the two I would refer you to. Rosie holds the Naked club, and Steve is the owner of the other. Both good clubs to join.
Just make sure you are on the look out for the "guru" style sellers you WILL encounter at times at club events. Far less of these are even welcome at Rosie's club than others throughout our state.

Mark makes a good point and I failed to mention this which is of upmost importance. Regardless of section 8 tenant or not, you MUST do the same and proper screening of the tenants EVERY time. Just because they come from sec. 8 does not mean you do not use the same screening methods and background checks. In fact, you should be even more critical of the sec. 8 screening.

Mike, you suggested that Dan will not find a good deaal on the MLS, but then suggested he get out of the house to look at properties for sale. Where would he find properties for sale that are not on the MLS? Are you refering to FSBO only?