I'm only sixteen and i want to start - Posted by Max Danoesoebroto

Real Estate Investing Real Estate Law
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Posted by Tim Fierro (Tacoma, WA) on March 20, 2002 at 03:50:37:

Max, I don’t know what state you are in, but here in Washington you can sign on a contract for real estate when you are under 18. However, you have to have a seller who will accept that you are signing for it.

In layman’s terms, you can sign a contract and you can enforce your rights on it. But the other party can’t enforce their rights on you because you are under 18. So the catch is that since the other party won’t be able to enforce their contract with you, they may not want to sign a contract with you. They would need to be desperate; motivated.

In Washington, if you show up to a motivated seller @ 16 and have the solution they need and they sign a deal with you; you have a contract.

I am not a lawyer and I know John just posted that he has left for the convention. Shy of waiting for John or any other attorneys to respond with an answer for your situation, you may want to check with your state laws. You could also call a real estate agent locally to you and find out if there is a law about being a minor and real estate contracts. Call more than 1 agent though, not all agents know all the regulations.

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I’m only sixteen and i want to start - Posted by Max Danoesoebroto

Posted by Max Danoesoebroto on March 19, 2002 at 15:38:33:

dear mr. attorney.
first of all i just want to inform you that me and my friend read this RE book and were very excited. so we were trying to start investing in RE. but the problem is me and my friend are only sixteen. and we asked our school teacher about legal documents.and she said that one must be 18 years of age to be signing a legal document.so, what do i do? do i need a co-signer? if so how do i do it? the next thing is we do not have credit either(as you know were only sixteen).do i need one? and i read in the success stories that a 17 year old bought a property how did he do it? and the last thing is sometimes me and my friend are afraid to approach seller’s in fear that the seller will underestimate us. so what do i do?
thank you
Max D.
ps:your advise will be very valuable for me and my friend