All Forum Posts by: Albert Hasson

Fannie has been painting and putting in new carpet in most all REO's here in Phoenix for years. I have even seen new 2 in. blinds installed. Thought they were doing the same throughout the country but evidently not.

For starters, it would teach them how to spell.

I hate to say it but with zero  experience in  development, or real estate for that matter, it would be near impossible to obtain financing from a bank without a huge amount of skin in the game, like 40-50% or more.  First step, call around to banks and run your situation by them.  You will get a good idea of your options after a few calls.  

Good luck.

It depends on your specialty. I have blocks of time away from work that I can devote to real estate investing. On the other hand, I have colleagues that seem to work 100 hours a week and would be ill-suited to REI. I have mainly been doing by and hold rentals and a few flips, however, I am looking into building spec homes.

@Matt Morgan PM me and I will give you the name of my attorney who set up an operating agreement for my partner and I

@Dion DePaoli Great post and I agree with you 100%.  

@Marcus Johnson The US government has only run a budget surplus in 12 out of the past 74 years. 74 years is a lifetime.  My my point is, you can wait your entire life for the government to stop running a deficit but it may never happen or happen only sporadically.  You are correct in that the bubble will burst eventually. That is the nature of economic cycles.  Problem is, you don't know if the bubble will burst next year in five years or 20 years from now. 

My advice to you, coming from someone who's been investing in real estate for almost 20 years now, is if you find a good deal go for it. This nonsense about waiting for the bubble to burst it is just that, nonsense.

Contrary to popular belief, there really is no correlation between rising interest rates and decreasing house prices.  The reason interest rates rise is because the economy is improving.  An improving economy usually means more jobs, higher wages, and more mobility thus allowing for people to enter the housing market and support prices.  Also, if you are waiting for the next round of foreclosures to hit the market, you will be waiting a long time. People normally do not lose their homes when the economy is good and the unemployment rate is near 6%.  I think I just read that foreclosures are back to pre-crisis levels with no evidence that the foreclosure rate will rise anytime soon.

Bob,

You tend to take a topic and localize it to Hawaii and California.  The advice you consequently give is not applicable to investors in the rest of the country.  I am sure the investor from Philly who started this thread does not intend to buy an investment property in either of those two states.  

Unless you have significant financial resources, no investor should buy a negative cash flow property even if it's with the best intention, i.e., desire to pay it off quickly.  Counting on appreciation in the vast majority of the country is just gambling and unwise.  Having a built in monthly cushion (cash flow) is the prudent way to go.

Your comment that "sophisticated investors don't buy cash flow" is insulting and just plain stupid.  It goes against the principles that have made countless real estate investors rich for generations.  

Its foolish not to have a diversified portfolio that includes stocks, bonds, RE,  ?gold, and cash.  It's sad that people don't trust the stock market, or RE for that matter.  Neither market is fixed or rigged,they are just cyclical.  If you see the dips in markets (stock or RE) as buying opportunities then you will be ahead of the game when it's time to cash out and retire.