"You Can't Do That"
How One Family Obtained Financial Freedom By Investing In Real Estate In A Down Market
by
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The first house I bought was an anniversary gift for my bride of five years.
It cost $14,800 and took 120 days to build. I had put $100 down as earnest money and at the day of closing, on an FHA loan, we received $50 back.
I never again spent any of my own money on the purchase of a home for us.
Now you probably think I just kept doing this and made my fortune.
Wrong. I purchased our next four homes in this manner as I pursued a career in other areas.
I had my own company, things went well and times went bad. We led a normal middle class life.
I invested in stocks and in mutual funds, made money and lost money. Like I said, normal middle class.
Twenty-five years into our marriage, our youngest son Todd went to a real estate seminar while on a graduation trip to California with his best friend.
He came back all excited about buying properties, houses, for nothing down.
He said. “Why don’t we do that?” I said, we do. That’s how I bought the home that we are living in.
He said. “No, I mean, why don’t we buy houses and rent them out like this seminar teaches.” “I never thought of it,” I said, and we went out and borrowed books from the public library and purchased books. All told, a total of over thirty books.
We, the three of us, my wife Penny, Todd and myself, read and discussed what we read and passed books back and forth as we finished them. In six weeks we put our first offer on a duplex.
Our plan was to put little or nothing down and possibly have the seller carry the balance on paper using a Contract for Deed. The realtor said, ‘you can’t do that any more‘. So, we went with a different realtor. On October first we closed on the purchase of a two story duplex and a single-family two-bedroom house.
That house we bought over twenty years ago was just recently sold. It has made us a lot of money from purchase to now, through rents and refinance. Now it has increased in value again.
The duplex was the first purchase in a sequence of purchasing a couple of dozen properties. I’ll take you through the purchase of that duplex step by step:
The asking price was $54,000 and the owners met us at the property. They had evicted bad tenants. They were in the process of fixing and painting the place up. They were “don’t-wanters”.
We sat down on the floor in the lower unit and negotiated the purchase price of $49,000 with $6,000 down and the balance on a Contract for Deed. Ho
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About the Book
“You can’t do that”
“You can’t do that any more.” That was the mantra of the average realtor when this family bought and sold the properties written about in this book. A time like today.
This is a book of succinct examples of buying investment residential real estate, by one family, that put them in the financially independent category few achieve, but many talk about.
· Examples of buying houses, of buying duplexes and apartment buildings.
· Buying with nothing down.
· Buying with the banks money.
· Buying in the down market.
· Buying a property and getting paid by the seller, to buy it.
Buying in a real estate market of declining prices, and of escalating interest rates.
Interest rates of 14%, 15% and even as high as 16% on home loans. We are not yet seeing that, and hope we never will again.A market very similar to the market of today.
These were also through the years when over building and conversion of the overbuilding made a tight rental market for apartments. Many for rent ads, offered free; toaster ovens,
microwaves or even one or more months of free rent.
Real estate goes up and it goes down. It is cyclical. Businesses are cyclical. The stock market is cyclical. The bond market is cyclical. Life is a cyclical thing. For people who want to pursue their financial dream of being financially free, this book is the map book through investing in real estate and getting the financial rewards. Reward yourself with this book.
About the Author
As the only son of German parents, growing up in north Minneapolis, Minnesota, it was the catalyst for the author’s personality. Being stubborn is a good trait. You set out to do something and then you just do it. Work hard is what everyone in the neighborhood did. Fathers of friends were firemen, policemen, trainmen, barbers and electricians, painters, and construction workers. Learning at an early age that if you wanted or needed money, the way to get it was to earn it. Cutting grass, raking leaves, cleaning garages, attics and basements of old bottles that were redeemed for their deposit value at the local grocery store. Keeping the day job while starting and running small businesses on the side was a common practice the first of these many companies were founded over forty five years ago. Twenty plus years ago when the youngest son, Todd, wanted to buy real estate as an investment, they all got together and it was an enthusiastic partnership that rewarded all with success. Today the author and his family partners still own real estate. Commercial property, that is professionally managed for them and residential real estate that requires little work on their part. Owning and operating internet web sites and looking at anything else that seems to be of interest, if it makes money, and does not take time away from traveling.