2-7-06
Unless you are Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, most people either don't have enough money or want more moolah.
Turn on the internet or check your email and you are almost guaranteed to find something about surefire riches.
One thing I've learned is if something looks too good, it usually is.
The people I have found to be the most successful are very smart, willing to take calculated risks and have their own business. Then again, some people are just lucky.
For the most part, I don't consider myself all that lucky. We have been blessed in many ways, but are far from rich. I would say that my wife sees to that, but I also contribute in many ways.
We got married a little over seven years ago. My wife had two children and was not getting any help from the father. She was working at a job that was low paying and demanded that she work nights.
That wasn't all that attractive to a newly married couple and especially to a mother who wanted to be home with her children at night.
So I started looking into generating other income. I studied all kinds of income opportunities. In the end, I decided to go with something I already had going.
It was a rent house that I bought after returning to my home town in 1990. I lived in the house for five years before moving into a house owned by my parents that was next to some land I had bought.
After moving from my house, I tried to sell it but the housing market was not good at that time (not that it has ever really blossomed like so many other areas). After getting tired of paying rent and also the mortgage (along with turning down offers to rent the house almost every day), I finally decided to give this landlord business a try.
No, it wasn't rocket science. I figured out what it would cost to handle the payment along with insurance and taxes and rented it out. Wow, this worked good, I decided.
I decided this was better than sliced bread. I couldn't think of any other way that you could get people to willingly make your payment, thus building up equity for me.
So after my wife quit her cruddy job, I knew we couldn't get by on just my income and this little duplex in town kept catching my eye.
I had one house and decided two houses in one would be even better. It was for the most part. We bought the duplex and had payments of $376 a month. When both sides are rented out, the income is $700 per month.
After this, I became obsessed with this real estate deal. I must point out that I had good credit and worked out a line of credit for the downpayments on the house so technically, we didn't put any of our own money into buying the houses.
But we bought the houses at a good price for the most part and wound up with equity as soon as we walked away from the closing.
Within six months, we formed an LLC, transferred the existing rental properties into the LLC and bought 10 additional houses and a mobile home park.
This was in the last part of 1999 and early part of 2000. One day, we bought two houses and a mobile home park (that included a house, 12 mobile homes and 13 pads waiting for people to rent) all on the same day.
Am I bragging? No, not in the least bit. Instead, I am showing that it can be done even if you aren't rolling in money. We built up our little real estate deal about as much as we wanted.
It provided an extra $2 thousand or so in net profit per month. Was it easy? No, I spent countless hours reading about investment property in books and on the internet.
We made some mistakes, but nothing that overwhelmed us. Since that time, we have sold two houses. The first house we sold was the initial house that I bought in 1990 for $23,000. We rented the house for five years and wound up selling it for $38,000.
That was after making money on the house every month for a long time.
The second house we bought for $20,000. (We live in a low income area). We had the house rented within a week of buying it, had the same renters for four years and wound up selling the house for $28,000.
Real estate might not be your cup of tea. I don't like dealing with problems with the houses so on most of our homes, we do a lease with an option to buy. This is good because the people who are paying to live in our house are responsible for all repairs.
I hope this has either given you some information or maybe inspired you to see there are ways to generate income.
If you have any questions or comments, please send me an email and I will do my best to answer them.
Thanks again.
Turn on the internet or check your email and you are almost guaranteed to find something about surefire riches.
One thing I've learned is if something looks too good, it usually is.
The people I have found to be the most successful are very smart, willing to take calculated risks and have their own business. Then again, some people are just lucky.
For the most part, I don't consider myself all that lucky. We have been blessed in many ways, but are far from rich. I would say that my wife sees to that, but I also contribute in many ways.
We got married a little over seven years ago. My wife had two children and was not getting any help from the father. She was working at a job that was low paying and demanded that she work nights.
That wasn't all that attractive to a newly married couple and especially to a mother who wanted to be home with her children at night.
So I started looking into generating other income. I studied all kinds of income opportunities. In the end, I decided to go with something I already had going.
It was a rent house that I bought after returning to my home town in 1990. I lived in the house for five years before moving into a house owned by my parents that was next to some land I had bought.
After moving from my house, I tried to sell it but the housing market was not good at that time (not that it has ever really blossomed like so many other areas). After getting tired of paying rent and also the mortgage (along with turning down offers to rent the house almost every day), I finally decided to give this landlord business a try.
No, it wasn't rocket science. I figured out what it would cost to handle the payment along with insurance and taxes and rented it out. Wow, this worked good, I decided.
I decided this was better than sliced bread. I couldn't think of any other way that you could get people to willingly make your payment, thus building up equity for me.
So after my wife quit her cruddy job, I knew we couldn't get by on just my income and this little duplex in town kept catching my eye.
I had one house and decided two houses in one would be even better. It was for the most part. We bought the duplex and had payments of $376 a month. When both sides are rented out, the income is $700 per month.
After this, I became obsessed with this real estate deal. I must point out that I had good credit and worked out a line of credit for the downpayments on the house so technically, we didn't put any of our own money into buying the houses.
But we bought the houses at a good price for the most part and wound up with equity as soon as we walked away from the closing.
Within six months, we formed an LLC, transferred the existing rental properties into the LLC and bought 10 additional houses and a mobile home park.
This was in the last part of 1999 and early part of 2000. One day, we bought two houses and a mobile home park (that included a house, 12 mobile homes and 13 pads waiting for people to rent) all on the same day.
Am I bragging? No, not in the least bit. Instead, I am showing that it can be done even if you aren't rolling in money. We built up our little real estate deal about as much as we wanted.
It provided an extra $2 thousand or so in net profit per month. Was it easy? No, I spent countless hours reading about investment property in books and on the internet.
We made some mistakes, but nothing that overwhelmed us. Since that time, we have sold two houses. The first house we sold was the initial house that I bought in 1990 for $23,000. We rented the house for five years and wound up selling it for $38,000.
That was after making money on the house every month for a long time.
The second house we bought for $20,000. (We live in a low income area). We had the house rented within a week of buying it, had the same renters for four years and wound up selling the house for $28,000.
Real estate might not be your cup of tea. I don't like dealing with problems with the houses so on most of our homes, we do a lease with an option to buy. This is good because the people who are paying to live in our house are responsible for all repairs.
I hope this has either given you some information or maybe inspired you to see there are ways to generate income.
If you have any questions or comments, please send me an email and I will do my best to answer them.
Thanks again.
posted by Craig Hall | 4:30 AM
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