All Forum Posts by: Richard C.

Also, if you do damage the lawn, it will usually be right around the house.  You can consider replacing it with a gravel or mulch bed, nicely edged, around the house rather than re-sodding.

Save the lawn, if you possibly can.  Usually all it takes is care.  Way too many contractors on a major rehab just assume any part of the landscape can be destroyed.

School district. Employment opportunities.  Good bones.

Yes it is simpler.  Prepare for advice likely to make many BP posters' heads explode.

You don't need "top deals."

Do the numbers work?  Even at the asking price?  If so, they work.  Yes. yes, "you make your money when you buy" yada, yada, yada.  But do the numbers work?  In the scenario you describe, you don't need to get a below-market deal to get started.  You're basically using leverage to control a property while it appreciates, or at worst, while you pay down the note.  If you can get a below-market deal, great.  If you cannot, that is fine.

You don't need to hit a home-run in your first at-bat in the big leagues.  A single to the gap is a great success.  And frankly, if you swing for the fences, you will more than likely strike out.

That said, if you want a better deal than you would otherwise get, make a relatively low offer on a building that has been on the market for a while, preferably in the early winter.

I read a story once, published in a local newsletter-type paper.  In it the author was describing the hard times his family had during the Depression when he was a boy.  About how from the age of 10, his hunting and fishing was important to keeping his family fed.  And about how his small trap-line once yielded a mink, cause for great celebration because the pelt was worth the equivalent of a weeks' wages, if there had actually been jobs at which to earn wages.

You know what the takeaway of that story is?  Even during the Great Depression, people were buying mink coats!

During the worst depression in history, people were buying garments the raw materials for which cost between 6 months and year's worth of average wages.  And enough people were doing that that the price of those raw materials remained high.

Or if you prefer a real estate analogy, the Empire State Building was begun in 1930, AFTER the stock market crashed.  And completed in 1931.

Money is made in every economic condition, in every place and every time.

Now, that said:

Do be careful.  The market IS rising, and in some areas I frankly think we are getting to bubble status again.

But no, it is not "too late."

 Funny story.  On one of the many threads about guru courses, I mentioned the "Richard C. Copper Mastery Course", which I promised would help my students to unlock the fortune in copper pipes and wiring to be found in empty homes all over America.

Some guy PM'd me, wanting to enroll.

 Can I buy your guru course?

 You know what?  It isn't investing.  The money my firm spends sending me around the country so I can fulfill my professional obligations is not investing, and if I was an independent consultant, the various expenses I would need to incur in the course of doing my job are not "investing."  They are the expenses of conducting my business.

Investing means putting capital to work.  Wholesalers deploy time and capital in doing a job.  They are fundamentally different things.

Note:  I would argue that owning residential rentals is only investing if you are paying for property management.  If you are self-managing (as I do) you are also working in a business, not investing.

"Investing" implies passivity.

If we are to believe the "wholesaler" hype, that $200,000 you are offering has to equal 70% of ARV plus your $10k assignment fee.

Which means the FMV is more than $200,000. How much more will vary, and can be debated.

Which means the seller, if he had a decent agent would NOT list at $200,000.

If we are talking about a house that needs no repairs, and has a fair market value of $210,000, then no one would do that deal because closing costs would swallow the profit.

As always on these threads, we are getting defensive reactions from people who are real estate professionals whose practice includes assigning contracts, when the criticism being offered is of the hundreds or thousands of clueless idiots messing with people's lives without being able to perform.

No one, including the original poster, is criticizing the sort of thing you and Hattie are talking about.  Why are you so eager to defend the entire category, when it includes so many bad actors?

 Just read this.  Amazing!   Allow me to say (ahem)....

...LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL