One of the best ways for working people to make a lot of money quickly in a way that they can control themselves is through real estate investing. One of the ways working people can quickly lose their financial asses if they don’t know what they are doing is through real estate investing too. For that matter even knowing precisely what you are doing is never a complete guarantee – and there really is no such thing despite guru claims. Try to get one of them to sign a contract that guarantees that you will never lose a dime or they will take care of it for you… see how that goes.
Anything that has the word “Investment” or any variation of that word means that you can lose money as well as potentially make money. There is no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to any investment. Real estate is no exception – although you do have more control over it than you do on most other investments and the potential profit is much higher than other things – it is still a risk.
Either accept the risk – or do NOT invest.
OK now that we have that out of the way – lets talk about real estate investing in an unusual and unconventional way. First you need a portable home to live in. A truck camper and or a converted cargo trailer will work just fine in most cases. Next you need to dump all your debt. Get rid of what ever you are living in now if it is mortgaged or rented and live in your truck camper and or converted cargo trailer. Yeah.. I know, I must be crazy – so I have been told. But bear with me for a few minutes and try to have an open mind anyway just for the sake of thinking about possibilities, not like you personally are actually going to go do it for real, just think of it as entertainment.
Now that you have dumped your main debt and expense (housing) – you start working on killing off those pesky little plastic life sucking credit cards until one by one they are all gone. You have now adopted a debt free living philosophy – you only buy what you can afford. Now you save up some cash – which isn’t hard to do since you live in your truck/cargo trailer and it’s paid for… so you start saving up money as fast as you can. You work overtime, and weekends and as much as you can get to get as much money as you can. While you do, every day you educate yourself about real estate investing and about your particular market.
You begin to scout out homes. You learn how to find them, what to look for, how to inspect them and what to walk away from. You learn how to very accurately determine the value of a potential property, using all available information to arrive at a realistic price the home should sell for when its ready. Through research and understanding what you are looking at you have a pretty good idea of how long it will take to sell the property.
Now you are ready. You know what you are doing. You have positioned yourself financially so that you can actually do it and minimize your risk. So you find the right property. You do your analysis and you carefully inspect the property and the area. It’s time to make your offer. You are going to obtain control of the property using a lease option with the right to improve and sell the property for a specific time frame with the right to extend the time frame in equal terms for a specified overall period of time after which if you do not buy the property or have it sold then you will either give it back to the owner seller with all improvements and repairs made or renegotiate a new deal if they are interested.
The initial term will be paid in full up front by you the day you get the keys – so there is no debt.
Once you have control of the property then covert camp there if you can while you work on the property. So you clean it, haul off all the trash and debris, do the cosmetic things that need to be done, make the repairs that need to be completed. When it is ready you put it on the market and sell it. When it closes the seller gets his pre agreed to amount – you get all the rest. What ever it is, and if you have done your homework and done this right it will be a significant amount of money.
Then what? You take your cash and all the lessons you learned doing this and you go and find the next property and do it again. Then repeat. At some point in time you will have more than enough to continue your real estate investing business (and by the way – it IS A BUSINESS) while at the same time you can take some of the cash you have earned and go buy yourself a piece of dirt to call home. Pay for it in full, covert camp there and over time build your own SMALL home as you can afford it board by board. Once it is done you have it made. Keep investing and stay on site of your projects when you like as you did in the beginning and when not go home.
Is it really possible? Yes. Is it simple, easy, guaranteed and is it something that anybody can do – HELL NO! and that is the problem with so many get rich quick real estate gurus and their BS books and courses. It is not simple. It is not easy. It is not super quick and there are many people who do not have the ability to do it without screwing it up royally. On the other hand – those who are able to research and learn and who are determined and willing to work their asses off – and not let anyone or anything stand in their way – for them it is not only possible, but damn near perfect.
As I mentioned – nothing in real estate investing is without risk. There are many risks. You may have problems with the city or county when it comes to stealth camping or covert camping there – maybe not. But if they threaten to fine you and otherwise try to run you off from your own property you will have to deal with that. Contracts including lease options are complex and you can easily step into all kinds of legal trouble and or unintentionally obligate yourself for things that are not in your best interest even without knowing you have done so if you don’t know exactly what you are doing – and even when you do know what you are doing there is always the risk of a lawsuit and some judge who interprets your own contract differently than you do – and who has the power to mess up your life to an extent.
Then comes valuation and cost estimating. Screw either or both up and you lose money by the boat load instead of ever making any. That is why you must educate yourself before jumping in with both feet and know what the hell you are doing before you screw things all up. The gurus don’t typically tell you that. They don’t tell you that because it doesn’t make everybody feel all warm and fuzzy and it certainly doesn’t help sell books and courses.
Some people can become successful real estate investors and it can change their lives – others need to find something else and leave real estate alone.
So what about you – can you do it or can’t you? if you can – then will you do it?