Posted by David W. on May 22, 2007 at 23:57:56:
I thank you guys so greatly for your support, resources and information. I am looking into each of the resources that you gave me. The major problem is contracts that I can rely on. I can type one myself; but I have noone that can look over them for a price that I can afford. I am very short on cash currently… sort of in a rut with the onhand cash.
please help - Posted by David W.
Posted by David W. on May 22, 2007 at 11:58:27:
I am ready and willing to start investing. I have been studying this business for about two years. I had taken the agency course when I was going to be an agent but I decided that I have more control and potential profit as an investor. The problem is I have NO money on hand. I might be able to handle $50 in earnest money. Other than that I would love to have a mentor if even only part time. The major fear that I have is writing an iron clad CONTRACT, if ever there were one. I just don’t want to end up getting screwed first try. If I lose anything in a transaction right now it would be my shirt.shoes.socks… you get the point. any ideas? I’m 23 in St.L. I have a job, but that barely pays for gas rent and debt service. Any ideas would be great.
Re: please help - Posted by William Flood
Posted by William Flood on May 24, 2007 at 20:11:34:
David,
Feel free to chat with me. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have and have a couple of good ideas on what to do as you begin.
Re: please help - Posted by JonC
Posted by JonC on May 22, 2007 at 19:31:52:
You have a great resource in St. Louis called the WIN(Wealth Improvement Network). Go to the next meeting on the first Thursday of the month and you can get all of the information you can hold. I drive 2 hours each way every month because I always learn something that helps my investing and there are no reia groups in Central MO like it. Go the the website, stlwin.com, and find the next meeting. See you there.
Re: please help - Posted by Dons
Posted by Dons on May 22, 2007 at 18:18:17:
David,
The enemy is fear.
Years ago I learned everything I needed to know about fear from an Alaskan Malamute pup. It was mid 1970’s when friends of ours had a Malemute and my wife fell in love with it. She wanted one. So as a graduation gift for her when she finished law school, I bought a 5 pound Alaskan Malamute pup for her.
Eventually he became 105 pounds of bounding stupidity. When he weighed about 20 pounds we decided to teach him to walk with us and to not pull on a leash. (Not pulling is a losing battle with Malamutes. They have a computer chip in their brain that says “pull…pull hard.”)
We walked out the door, up the street to the first block, turned left and the darn fool critter sat down mule-like…would not budge. He was frightened to death about something. Maybe he thought the boogy-dog was going to jump out of the bushes and devour him. We turned around an went home.
Next night…same story except he walked a couple hundred feet farther on that second block before turning into a fear-mule. Well, the heck if I was going to carry my wife’s dog on his walks! At 20 pound that would be difficult. At 105 pounds…impossible.
The third night we went a little farther before his fear stopped him.
It took us a week to get him around the block once! After that he was fine. He would walk anywhere. He needed to work his way though his fear.
Guess what? Humans are a lot like that too. Soooo now you get to stop being a fear-mule. Or fear Malamute. Or fear human!
You say you have been studying this business for two years. How much have you been studying? What have you been studying? Have you read EVERY book about REI you could get your hands on? They are even available used through Amazon if you don’t have the money. And to study them treat that book as if it were a college text book and needed to KNOW everything in there in order to pass an exam.
Most importantly…have you joined your nearest REIA? You will find it to be a gold mine of information.
There are a whole group of free articles on this website. Have you studyied them? Just like studying a text book. I’ll send you an email about a bunch of free articles on doing REI. I have to go look up their location first.
Don
Re: please help - Posted by David C. Cooper
Posted by David C. Cooper on May 22, 2007 at 16:16:48:
I am in a similar situation and this is how I’m handling it, so far…
When you really break it down, every “how-to” article or informative forum response you read about real estate investing, is really about setting a goal then creating and acting on a plan to achieve that goal.
I recently got a hold of a book by Wendy Patton called Lease Options and Subject Tos. In it, she suggests writing down the following goal:
“Make $120,000/year in real estate investing, part-time (10 hours per week), starting with less than $5000 of personal net worth!”
She also outlines a 12 month action plan, specifically targeted at achieving that goal, that I used to base my own action plan on by typing it all out into a word program.
Now that I have my game plan, I spent the last week calling friends, relatives, for rent ads and anyone I could think of to let them know that I was going to be finding solid real estate deals that I would be able to offer them for wholesale prices 15-20% below after repair value.
This week I’m on the hunt for my first deal. I’ll be hunting down motivated sellers to see if I can help them accomplish their own life goals by moving their properties into the hands of people who will add value to them and the community.
P.S. I will be farming properties in Crescent City, CA. If anyone wants to chat, or would like to be added to my wholesale properties mailing list, drop me a message at cooperdavidc@charter.net or 707.464.2542
^^