Thanks for all the good info. I’m pretty pleased with one realtor and I have a fax machine I am sending him a letter (similar to one I saw in the “articles” on this site, asking him to fax me properties. I will include some of your info too. I ordered Ron Legrand’s book last night, as I am really leaning toward fixing and flipping. No I have not made any offers yet. UGH! Not gonna’ get anywhere until I do!
Would you mind if I e-mailed you from time to time? Please feel free to e-mail me at yoderboys@juno.com.
Thanks again for sharing some of your expertise.
Hi Cindy,
I live in Portland and I’m the president of an investment club by the name of Inve$t NorthWest. We have members who come up from the salem/albany area in our club and we meet on the first monday of every month.
If you would like more information, please feel free to email me at rnt2own@yahoo.com.
Thanks
Coni J. Mackey
Gaines Property Investments LLC
Hi Cindy,
I’m from Eugene and just discovered this site a few days ago. If you haven’t already looked in REI Clubs they list the Oregon clubs, but I don’t remember seeing any from Salem. I agree, it looks like a great site.
Posted by Janice in OR on March 11, 2000 at 18:18:57:
Hi Cindy,
We have two single family homes that we have rented out and our home. I don’t know about Salem, but in Eugene houses are so expensive, it’s very hard to get a positive cash flow. Even with multi units it’s rare to have a positive cash flow not putting any money down.
I got my real estate license three years ago, but had kind of forgotten about creative real estate investing until I came across this website.
Have you done any investing yet? Have you gotten Carleton Sheets’s course? Does it seem like there are any opportunities where you live?
Hello again, how is it having two rentals? I’m so curious. I have heard it is a real hassle. But what isn’t I guess. I did order Carleton Sheets course and am going through it a second time. I have not made any offers yet but have a stack of 3 bdrm./1-2 baths to look at this week. I was hoping to puchase, fix up and flip. I like to do cosmetic cleanup. It does seem that there are opportunities here. I am just so afraid to write up my first offer.
Posted by Janice in OR on March 12, 2000 at 11:50:26:
Hi Cindy,
I started really checking out potential renters. I think if you’re really careful the chances of having a problem are pretty small. One of the rentals has a negative cash flow so we have it up for sale. We would like to reinvest in other properties, so I’m looking right now, too. The other one is an old house sitting on .8 acres. We’re dividing the property into 3 or 4 lots. I know we can’t build houses and have it make sense financially, so I’m checking into moving houses onto the lots and remodeling them.
Do you have a pretty good idea about the value of the properties you’re looking at and the costs to rehab? Were you going to ask the owner to carry?
Wow, moving costs sound very expensive. I feel fairly confident at assessing the property values, and costs of repairs. I am not interested in major rehab. just cosmetic, so that we can do ourselves, like Pergo, vinyl, paint, landscape, carpet. Yes, I am planning on asking the owner to carry. I have some to put down too. I know I will have to look at a lot of properties in order to find someone willing to carry.
But there are some good deals up here, they just go so quickly. I am wondering if I am going to have to rely on a Realtor to check their computers EVERY DAY.
How did you finance? Did you use a lawyer for your first purchase?
Posted by Janice in OR on March 14, 2000 at 24:33:25:
Hi Cindy,
We had fixed up a house and had to reinvest the money. That’s why we bought those two houses. They weren’t very good investments.
If you’re working with properties that are listed by realtors, you’re better off to have your own realtor. It doesn’t cost you anything and the listing agent isn’t going to be working for you. You shouldn’t need a lawyer on those. Have you checked out Realtor.com? I don’t know how quickly they get listings in there. A property I put in MLS one week ago is in there. If you can find someone to keep an eye on new listings that would be great. The MLS has a feature that will notify an agent when properties come on the market. They can ask to be notified when Owner Will Carries, or properties that include “Fixer” or similar terms in the remarks, come on the market, if you can get someone to do that for you.
It’s really easy to get information from the county if you see something that’s not on the market. Have you made any offers yet?