Real Estate Investing

[Frank]

I like the flower business and intend on staying in it for the near future. Unfortunately, it is getting harder and harder to generate good profits from a retail floral shop. So, I have decided to, in addition to operating our flower shop, to try my hand at real estate investing in 2007. In particular, residential real estate flipping.

Anyone here have any experience or advice for me?

 

[Connie]

Several years ago, a friend entered the real estate business, and she had been told to have in savings at least 2 years salary and to be prepared to go out at all hours, weekends and holidays included, in order to show a house.

At that time, she was not interested in flipping houses. She wanted to be a real estate agent.

 

[Mikey the Flower Guy]

Frank.....

Sandie and I were very successful, at buying, fixing up, renting, then selling investment properties, and one of the "keys" is to BUY, when the general public is selling like crazy, and sell, when the opposite is true!!
One of the greatest downfalls in real estate "flipping" is trying to "time" the market, much like stock & money market portfolios.
Use your gut, and sell when your gut says sell.
Do NOT EVER begrudge yourself that you made the wrong decision.....because you MAY HAVE made more, if you held on a little longer!
And, by the way, some of my MOST ENJOYABLE years, were when we had amassed several investment properties.....and THEN, the "recession" arrived!

 

[LORRIE]

Frank,

my Dad did this for years, significantly adding to the family income while he was in law school. Only odd thing being that we moved in to each property while it was being fixed up and lived like nomads. Not alot of fun. I tried it too when I was much younger and did flip two houses making a nice profit on each one. In addition to Mikeys advice, my caution is that the only time we ran into problems was when we had to hire outside labor to fix stuff- if you are a handy guy ya got it made. Painting , wallpapering and landscaping really spruce up alot but electrical/plumbing stuff can kill the profit quickly.
Probably best to talk to someone in your local area to guage the market. Right now here, there is a glut of property on the market and the flippers are drowning in mortagage payemnts- the forclosure rates are off the charts. Maybe in your part of the country it's better, but lots of the flippers have flopped here. Good Luck!

 

[Victoria]

My daughter's boyfriend is very successful at building and flipping... other than he too lives like a Nomad. But then the fruits of his labours affords him the opportunity to travel, surprise Alana with great weekend get aways and the like.

V

 

[BOSS]

Frank, I too am looking into doing this, although with commercial properties. **Our** thinking here is that commercial will (may) require less "fixing up".

Notice I said **Our**...we are putting together a group of 4-5 local business property owners in a group to do this together. Our combined purchase power without cash down is near $2MM, and we are forming a private company to handle the details. Our area is poised to move into a new development direction, with many new things already coming, including a new 5 Star Hotel, another new Marriott, and a brand new, state of the art AAA Baseball Club.

We may also look into the residential thing down the road, but that seems like too much work to us, we think buying commercial, then recruiting businesses to fill the spots, and a *deal* for the first year or two, should work well. Kind of a "business incubator".

Good luck!

 

[Joe Mioux]

Sandie and I were very successful, at buying, fixing up, renting, then selling investment properties, and one of the "keys" is to BUY, when the general public is selling like crazy, and sell, when the opposite is true!!
One of the greatest downfalls in real estate "flipping" is trying to "time" the market, much like stock & money market portfolios.
Use your gut, and sell when your gut says sell.
Do NOT EVER begrudge yourself that you made the wrong decision.....because you MAY HAVE made more, if you held on a little longer!
And, by the way, some of my MOST ENJOYABLE years, were when we had amassed several investment properties.....and THEN, the "recession" arrived!

Ahhh!

The goal of every Commodity Broker.....buy low sell high or sell high first and buy back later at a lower price.

Joe, an ex-Commodity Broker.