All Forum Posts by: Richard Ball

@James H.Hello James! There is a lot of information on this site so all I can say is read read read and listen to the podcasts. I will second @Kah M. when you are finally ready to buy ask your prospective Realtor how many houses they have flipped or how many rentals they have and if they say none call the next Realtor on the list. Unfortunately I am not that familiar with Redford but if you ever expand to Detroit or anything in Oakland, Macomb or St Clair County feel free to reach out to me when you are ready to find a good deal or just want someone to bounce an idea off or verify if you have a deal or not. Congrats on your first step to success!

@John DudasWelcome to the site! I would say good luck but it sounds like you are taking the necessary first steps to where you won't need any luck :D 

@Kah M. Hello Karim, welcome to the site! I am not sure anyone will be able to help you with your question of where to cut back so you can get a mortgage with out real numbers instead of percentages. I am also not 100% sure where you are buying so I can't use numbers that may be relevant to your area. Let's pretend you are buying in Warren though since you said suburb of Detroit. You can get a house for 45,000 in Warren and rent that property for 900. 75% of 45,000 (25% for down payment) means you have a mortgage of 33,750. That payment equals out to roughly 181 with a 5% interest rate amortized over 30 years. Taxes are roughly 125 a month, property management is 70, insurance should be 40 a month. Now you are down to 900-181-125-70-40=484. Now you are going to want to calculate capital expenditures. So how much life is left on your roof, water heater, furnace, decks, garage door, sidewalk, driveway and then take the years left and divide by the cost it takes to fix it. Say you have 10 years on your roof and it will cost 5,000 to fix so 5,000/120(months left)=41.66 so you need to put away 41.66 each month into a capital expenditures account to account for this repair. Do the same with everything else and whatever is left after all these expenditures is your profit. Divide your profit and only your profit up as you see fit, whether you want to pay yourself or use it to reinvest is up to you. There is a lot of information on this site that is a lot more detailed then what I just put out there. I would also recommend checking out the calculators this site has to offer as they may remind you of an expense you maybe forgetting about. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!

@Joel FlorekCongrats! Keep up the good work!!

I am referring to independent offices, typically places like Reality Executives charge $50 a month which isn't a lot but they also expect you to sell which takes marketing dollars and more importantly time. If you go to a local independent branch with a couple Realtors they won't typically charge monthly fees they will just split commissions with you. Normally those splits are 50/50 or 60/40 depending on the brokerage. When you go talk with them just let them know you are an investor and you will primarily be using your license to purchase properties for yourself. Give them the number of homes you are projecting to buy this year and next year. That projected number may be more then some of the other "full-time" Realtors in there office so they will be happy to have you. Also after you start doing this you end up finding more deals then you yourself can purchase and / or deals that are out of your criteria for one reason or another and you start sending them to other investors.

As for getting my license check Groupon, they always have deals. I took the week long class through Real Estate One for $80 plus $50 for the book on a deal Groupon had. Matter of fact I took it twice, the first time I did it was for continuing education in the real estate field as I thought it might help my investing career (it will not).

I guess I am kind of bias but I agree. I invest in the suburbs of Port Huron (but no longer in Port Huron) and the demand is high. I would not just limit my purchases to this area though as many suburbs of Detroit have the same types of deals/demands. Michigan is a great state to invest and the state is once again thriving :

I guess I am kind of bias but I agree. I invest in the suburbs of Port Huron (but no longer in Port Huron) and the demand is high. I would not just limit my purchases to this area though as many suburbs of Detroit have the same types of deals/demands. Michigan is a great state to invest and the state is once again thriving :

I guess I am kind of bias but I agree. I invest in the suburbs of Port Huron (but no longer in Port Huron) and the demand is high. I would not just limit my purchases to this area though as many suburbs of Detroit have the same types of deals/demands. Michigan is a great state to invest and the state is once again thriving :D

I guess I am kind of bias but I agree. I invest in the suburbs of Port Huron (but no longer in Port Huron) and the demand is high. I would not just limit my purchases to this area though as many suburbs of Detroit have the same types of deals/demands. Michigan is a great state to invest and the state is once again thriving :D

I guess I am kind of bias but I agree. I invest in the suburbs of Port Huron (but no longer in Port Huron) and the demand is high. I would not just limit my purchases to this area though as many suburbs of Detroit have the same types of deals/demands. Michigan is a great state to invest and the state is once again thriving :D