Posted by Rich-CA on September 26, 2008 at 09:27:54:
you will need to do what they tell you because lending is very tight right now. That is part of what the “financial crisis” news headlines mean to all of us personally. The days of zero down with basically no cash to contribute to the deal are essentially over and will be for quite a few years. We’re back to the era of 20% down and solid credit history that existed for 30 years prior to the recent “easy money” environment.
Exercise patience. It will also help you to walk away from deals that are not as good as they look at first glance. Don’t be in too much of a hurry to “invest” what you have when it puts you at risk. Prices are going to move up slowly if at all for some time to come. There will be exceptions but they will be rare and many times you’ll just scratch your heau ared and wonder what is causing that upswing and not another similar situation. These things happen but you can get real broke real fast chasing these kinds of things.
Depending on where you are and when you close, 4 months may be necessary. You will also need rehab money on top of that, since most REO properties are not exactly move in ready. The best rental season will be summer vacation - between when school gets out and when it starts again. The worst is from November through January where between holidays and “use it or lose it” vacation time, people just are not around to look.
Personally, I would wait until after the election so you can see if there will be a big tax increase or not.