14 years ago, I bought my first home. I have been living in it ever since....lots of mods later (to the house I mean).

This Friday, my wife and I moved in a new direction and bought a second property as an investment. It was an interesting and complicated deal, but the house was in foreclosure. The owner needed out from under but wanted a place to live. So, I put togther a nice deal for the both of us.

The previous owner pays rent from us and can live in the house as long as she wants. I made over $30k cash as closing, and paid about $30k less then the value of the house. When I sell it (2 - 3 years), I will split a portion of the equity with the previous owner. This way everyone wins. The owner was going to loose the whole thing anyway and is a familiy member, so we are helping her out too. Is she stays in the house for 2 years, she should be able to make back everything that she lost, plus put about another $50k in our direction.

Not bad for doing nothing but signing papers - LOL

 

damn i need to get into real estate lol

 

Not bad Blake.We are fixing up our house right now and plan on selling it in a few years and having my brother build a new one for cost (he's a contractor )

 

Will you buy me a nice little somethin with that chunk of change?

 

Well two years from now you should invest that 50K in a Gt-500. Or some more real estate.

 

I am older then most of you guys, far from rich, but I do pretty well. It just goes to show you the power of financial leverage. For most of us, there will be no greater investment then buying a house. It is such an important thing to do I can not stress how much.

Property values never decrease over the long-term, and the more you buy, generally speaking, the more money you will make.

It really does not take much money....or even ANY money to buy property. Just some income, some good credit, and the wisdom to put-off other purchases for now so you can buy more later.

In some cases, you do not even need much income, but bad credit will always work against you.

When we applied for this new mortgage, it was refreshing to hear the underwriter say "wow" to me on the phone when he pulled my credit report. My credit history is something that I am proud of, but not always something that was perfect.

To you young guys/gals out there, unless you are in a position to gain sizable inhertitance, or just simply have a family with means, buy that first house!!! Even if it is crap....it will be your crap.

Look at it this way, it takes about $375 per month to finance $50,000. Get two friends together and buy a condo, or buy a fixer-upper all by yourself. Im ten years that $50,000 investment might be worth $250,000 or more, or perhaps not that much. But once you start building equity, the sky is the limit. You can borrow against it too in order to make further investments.

Often times, this is the only difference between those that have and those that do not.

My youngest brother (I have 5) just bough his first house....it is a condo he bought with a friend at work. He is just 24 years old, so still young. I am proud of him for doing this. He drives a Honda (I know....), but he could be driving a Vette on his $70k salarly, but choose instead to buy a house.

I know this is a mustang site, but hell, we all would love to have more money to buy more mods right? Well, a house is the first major step towards fullfilling your dreams of owning that GT-500.

 

yeah i'm def. thinking about stayin another year at FSU and gettin a Corporate Real estate We have our house and a rental property and right now my parents are workin on getting another house for themselves and renting out the property we livin now...it's tough because non of the houses in my neighborhood are going for under 500k so getting a new house isn't guna be cheap. That and we want Land and house, not just House....(much of the developers here are getting Bang for their buck with houses 20 feet from each other, we want enough land to have privacy in our back yard....

 

Great news Blake. I cant wait to get the chance to buy a house. There is no other investment with returns quite like it. Hopefully I can do it in about 3 years or so.

 

Congrats.

I want to buy property as soon as I can once I have a steady job. Unfortunately real estate is so freakin expensive here in CA, I'm looking at $200k for a 1 bedroom condo in my area! I may have to move out of state just to own property before I'm 40! Or buy investment properties elsewhere, rent for myself (for now) and use the equity in those to get a home here.

 

I love living in the city but also out in the sticks....between my grandparents, my aunt, and my mom...my family has 160 acre's of land...talk about privacy ...i can go out back with my girlfriend and just pick a stump to have fun on and no one would ever see...also can go hunting any time, 4x4 ing, snowmobiling, and pretty much anything else (NOTE bonfire parties int he gravel pit are sweet)...but yea property is the most smartest thing you can ever do as long as you can pay for it...once i pay my car off and have my baby this june i am going to buy 50 acre's out by my family and later on will build a house as my uncle is a contractor..

 

Nice, wanna share the wealth??...

 

Congrats

Yep, I picked up a small 2 bed, 1 bath home with a good sized 2 car garage for 48K (sure do love real estate prices in Iowa!)

My house payments are less then my rent was and it is no longer being thrown away. Instead I'm building up equity I plan to do some work on the house, some landscaping, a concrete pad in place of gravel, and run power to the garage before I sell it in about 5 years.