Posted by Ronald * Starr(in No CA) on September 10, 2003 at 20:59:31:
Yello dragonz------------------
Yes. You might want to study the low-down and no-down methods of getting ownership or getting control of properties. There are many.
Good InvestingRon Starr***
Start Up Money? How much do you NEED? - Posted by yello_dragonz
Posted by yello_dragonz on September 10, 2003 at 16:42:11:
I am still a student and find this business really interesting. But I only have so much from my part time job, and was wondering how much you guys needed to start on your first investment. I have $8K saved up and am willing to use it in RE. Is this enough?
Tom’s right, it depends on what you do - Posted by Eddie
Posted by Eddie on September 12, 2003 at 11:30:59:
Tom gives good advice. Traditional buy and hold is only one of many ways to make money in this business. You may also wholesale, flip, lease/option, rehab, or other things. Which of those you may want to do depends on a lot of things including your skills, aptitudes, available time, and temperment, and perhaps most of all your personal goals in life. Read the archives here for all those ideas.
The cash you have may be enough to wholesale or lease-option, but it may not be enough yet to buy and hold properties. I have had rentals for years now and have only slowly built up a good cash reserve. But in hindsight that may not have been a good idea - to be honest I think I’ve been more lucky than good - if I were starting over now, one thing I would do differently would be to learn the techniques that help you build up your cash reserve over time - for example, wholesaling.
There are a lot of good posts on this website about the importance of cash reserves - while it may not take money to buy real estate if you’re creative, it does take money to stay in business over the long haul. So one of your strategies should be how to continually build up your cash reserves as you go.
Re: Start Up Money? How much do you NEED? - Posted by Tom
Posted by Tom on September 11, 2003 at 17:02:42:
Depending on what you’re doing to invest, you can do it with just a few hundred dollars. If you do a flipping strategy, you’ll need a little more to put down depending on your mortgage. If you do owner financing, that may be much less. If you do lease option, you might only need $100. It all depends. Find out a strategy that will work for you and your investing style. A really quick way to do this is to educate yourself. Either by reading the information on this site or go to several sites. Check out fastcashcourse.com for some really great information. Buy a course to learn techniques more indepth than what is discussed on these message boards. Learning all the ins and outs of a specific technique will help you with ask more informed questions. Do a search on ebay for courses that can help you out more. Ultimately, this will help you put MORE MONEY IN YOUR POCKET!
Re: Start Up Money? How much do you NEED? - Posted by Jay(OR)
Posted by Jay(OR) on September 11, 2003 at 02:25:03:
Well, here’s my prerogative on this topic. I own 5 rentals now. When I started, I had a little over $10,000 in the bank (I bought an old 80’s civic instead of the new 4Runners my friends were driving). Took all of that money to get the first deal. I recently refinanced that loan from almost 10% to 6.25% and put $3000 in the bank from it, and have a $200 lower payment. The last house I bought for $55,000 with only $1,400 out of my pocket. This was just about a month ago. I’m going to have to put another $2,000 into it, but after that it’s going to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $85,000, and rent for $650 or so, so I’ll have about $200 cashflow on that one. Also, because of what I’ve saved in rent by living in one of the units, I’ve been able to get the ol’ bank balance back up to over $10,000 in the past year, and have $120,000 in equity. HOWEVER, I was extremely lucky not to have any problems with my units in the past year while I had no money in the bank. If something had happened, I would have been able to use a credit card to take care of it, but you must be sure of your situation that if something happens you won’t get wiped out. This is just the modest story of a 22 year old junior in college without a job, but I hope it helps. Trust me, at our age, you WILL get told by people (especially other “educated” people) that you’re crazy for wanting to get into real estate. But when this happens, keep in mind that these are the same people who are going to school so they can get a job for the rest of their lives… It’s much scarier looking in than diving in, good luck, Jay(OR)