All Forum Posts by: Rick Pozos

Questira.com has a bunch of educational articles on their website. I know they have classes in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas and Houston. 

It might be a nice little vacation to one of those cities for your parents.

Be careful with the large wholesale companies out there. The reason that you have to analyze so many deals is that they are probably not deals by the time they get to you.

If you are looking at the 250k range, you should figure on making about 50k, right? So whats the difference in paying 10% on your money and 15%?? Its about 6k if you finish the rehab in 6 months. In the big picture the interest rate does not make that much of a difference. So you make 40k+ instead of 50k. You have to get out of that mindset that everything has to be a certain way. 

What I am saying is dont wait for the perfect house, perfect financing, the perfect market, etc. It will never be perfect. Just buy something!! With your experience, you will get better financing, better deals, better contractors.

By the way, private money is a friend or relative who lends you money, hard money is a company no matter how big.

If you are buying the property with your IRA money, then you will not need hard money. Your IRA will own the property, your IRA will pay for the rehab and your IRA will sell the property. All money will go back into the IRA.

If you dont have time to market to sellers, look at properties, oversee a rehab and make sure that all is going well with the sale of your IRAs property, you can do other things with the money as long as it stays in your IRA. Your IRA can lend it to other investors, it can partner with other investors, it can buy notes that are performing or non-performing. It can lend the money to someone who wants to buy a car. There are not too many rules on what can be done with the money. Just know the rules.

Ditto on Quest IRA. They have lots of informational seminars on how the owner of the company and his brother have done deals in the past. Also how deals can be done. Lots of great info from their seminars. Most of the classes, seminars, etc are free. They also sponsor a Carribean Cruise, not free.

All of the employees are knowledgeable, friendly and want to help.

There are good deals everywhere. The problem is are you good at marketing to find those deals? People are doing deals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Dallas and every other city. Finding the people who NEED to get out of their home is the way to find a good cash flowing deal.

There is also purchasing notes which can get you 10% or maybe even 15% on an annual basis. You might even consider lending money or joint venturing with others who do the marketing to find those deals.

Asking for owner financing should always be the first question. If they say no to owner financing, Next thing to say: Well if I have to pay you cash, that means It will be a much lower offer.

The two areas you mentioned are very unusual for San Antonio. There are 20k houses and there are 300k houses in the same area. The proximity to downtown is great, some of the homes are classic turn of the century with great detail and craftsmanship. There are lots of boarded up houses too. Be careful!!!

Dont listen to someone who is trying to sell you a house about comps, repairs, and what the area is doing.

Why are you short on time?? Real estate is a long term business. It is not a get rich in a couple of years kind of game. You can make some quick cash by flipping, but then you are just changing jobs. Real wealth is gained over the long term. Creating notes, owning notes, owning rental property, doing a flip now and then. Real estate should be your retirement, not extra cash flow so that you can have extra cash every month to pay your heloc back. When taxes go up or tenants move out, you should be able to pay that expense from the money you saved over the last year of rent. But when you have to pay that heloc back AND a mortgage pmt, its a Bit&#. 

Instead of starting out BIG, buy a smaller house, rehab it, make some money, pay them back. Everybody happy. Try it again, but go a little bigger, do it again and again.

Now you are ready to tackle something BIG and you have some money in your pocket also when things go wrong.

Finding a property that is truly a DEAL is really the hard part. If you can find DEALS on a regular basis through networking and marketing you will be in pretty good shape.

What I am saying is that you dont need central, you need a big window unit with heater/air conditioner. Sears has them for under $1000. I bet less than 10 houses in a mile radius has central. 

http://www.sears.com/search=heating%20and%20coolin...

The house looks pretty rough. I would probably not take on that big of a project. I guess I am just more conservative.