Have You Made Over $90,000 So Far This Year?
Posted on May 27, 2011 by
You say flipping and real estate investing are dead?! Well, you need to meet Edith and Wanda! These two ladies have already made over $90,000 in the first four months of 2011— just by flipping houses! Yeah, baby!
I sat down for a quick interview with these two amazing women:
How did you get started investing together? “We met at work and, though we each invested in real estate on our own, we decided to do some deals together for the sheer joy of it. We combined our money, knowledge and experience and really started hammering out the deals.”
How do you find your deals? “We make offers and work closely with a local realtor friend, and we’re big on cruising our area in search of vacant homes or FSBO’s. We also have a buy/sell site (Look4YourNextHome.com), which brings in a lot of leads, and we constantly check the local paper, Craigs List and Auction.com sites. Making a ton of offers is crucial to our success.”
What goes through your head when you make an offer? “We don’t get caught up in the seller’s asking price. We do our due diligence to make sure that the price we offer allows us several different exit strategies—either wholesaling to another investor, rehabbing and reselling, or selling the property with owner financing. It’s important to keep in mind that an investor makes his or her money going into the deal.”
How do you determine where to invest? “We live in a small North Georgia community and, though we know every inch of our county, we concentrate on areas that qualify for USDA financing. In our county, if a house qualifies for USDA, then it’s usually an easy sell. Also, location is everything, so we look for REO properties in nice subdivisions that we can quickly rehab and resell.”
What kind of rehabs will you tackle? “We like simple shave-and-and-a-haircut rehabs – those under $10,000. We like to get in and get out of a deal as quickly as possible, so we make offers on houses that really just need a face lift.”
How do you get your properties sold so quickly? “When we know our offer is going to be accepted, either by the homeowner or the bank, then we immediately begin advertising the property for sale. We advertise on Craigs List and on our website. More often than not, we’ve already got the house under contract to sell before we even have it bought. Those deals, back-to-back closings, are a blast!”
So there you have it. Wanda and Edith— two women who head out everyday to hunt down a deal, kill it and drag it home. No tricks to it. Just hard work and a fierce determination to succeed!
Bill & Kim Cook are a husband and wife real estate investing team. They live in Adairsville, Georgia and have been investing in real estate since 1995. They specialize in buying single-family homes, mobile homes and mobile home parks. They also run North Georgia REIA and teach folks how to successfully invest in real estate.
This is great information!!! Many people think that Real Estate investment opportunities are not available in today's market and that is clearly not true!!! The profit margins have certainly been compressed in many cases though. I would like to suggest a revolutionary way of marketing and selling a home without paying the traditional "Listing Agent" Commissions by using a "Flat Fee" MLS Listing service such as http://www.realtyzoom.com . This company enables their clients to list a home for a few hundred dollars on the local MLS saving thousands of dollars vs. the full price Realtor charges. Many investors in today's market have found this listing option significantly increases their profits.