Commercial Real Estate Investment Articles

Well gang, I am ashamed to say that I have been in the mobile home industry for over nine years either as a salesperson or a manager for large retailers. I went into the used mobile home industry three years ago and have had my own dealers license for the past two years. I have focused primarily on selling pre-owned homes in parks and getting them finance through lending groups (with the occasional land pack thrown in for good measure)

First off I would like to start off by thanking a few people that really helped to put this deal together: Angel Gutierrez, for helping me to think outside the box, and Ed Garcia and Terry Vaughan for allowing me to attend their How to Get Lender’s Fighting to Give You Money Workshop, without which I would never have met Angel.

I purchased a home last year from a verymotivated seller for $500. He was losing the house to back taxes in two days, and the home was badly in need of major repairs. I knew very little about real estate investing then, but after paying the $2,600 back taxes and spending $7,600 in repairs, I proceeded to find a buyer who is paying me $35,000 for the house.

Over the past ten years, I had “successfully” built up an aviation facilities management business. After ten years of hard work, in February of 2001, my wife and I decided it was time to “start taking money off the table.” That is to say, after ten years of reinvesting in the business, it was time to take some money out and put it into other investments like real estate.

My wife, Deb (who has sold real estate for over 15 years), and I have had so many “light bulb” moments over that past six months reading CRE Online and www.RichDad.com that we just about can’t stand it. But we’ll try.

I thought I would send you a short note. You are always asking for comments and Success Stories. I have been visiting CRE Online for about a year now. I am an American civilian who has lived and worked in Germany for the last 33 years. I love this site. The information is priceless. There is something for everyone.

It’s time I told my story…To all those who helped me get started back a couple of months ago when I was a newbie: Thank you, thank you, thank you. You know who you are: gals and dudes who were real cool with their time and experience to help me with some questions I had to get me started.

My name is Andy Martin. I am a Project Manager for a construction company. I work full-time and run a window cleaning company on the side while looking for houses to rehab and flip.

My story starts out in January 2001. I was 25, sick of my job, and hungry for money. I ordered Carleton Sheets, the course arrived, and I completed the course in one day. About an hour after completing the course, I hit the Internet. While searching for the Carleton Sheets website I stumbled upon CRE Online. This was not good, seeing as though I was now obligated to review every last page of this site.

What a RUSH! After starting my investing career back in 1998 and acquiring 13 properties, which I still have, I was recently introduced to a real estate agent that lived in MY BOX! He understood almost everything that I wanted to do. Finally!

I just wanted to tell you about the deal that I got yesterday. A motivated seller has a house in great area in my community.

My minister at church gave a sermon about how we should do what we are good at and what has worked for us in the past. Duh. The light bulb went off and I realized that over the past 20 years, what few real estate investing deals I did always turned out good. So I decided to begin to look for possible rentals.

I’ve been visiting CRE Online for about a year now, and I can’t tell you how motivating it is to me. Last year, we finally decided to take the plunge and buy our first real estate investment.

I wanted to thank Creative Real Estate Online for being a extremely good source of information and motivation. We thoroughly enjoy reading through all the information here and learning from it. We finally made it and have our first success story to share.

Two years ago, in Spring 2001, I was a first year law student at Fordham Law School in New York City. I really enjoyed law school, but I was beginning to realize there was a decent chance that the 80+ hours per week I would be working when I graduated (if I got a job at all) would only have me bring home around $50K per year.

Thanks for all the hard work that goes into CRE Online. The info you provide has enabled me to change my life! I’ve been investing in real estate full time for nearly four years. I had always read about investors finding great deals on houses and selling to other investors for a quick profit (wholesale flipping), but I had never really searched out these opportunities.

My name is Brad Hawley. I am a Specialist in the United States Army. As a soldier in the United States Army, I have not had a lot of free time lately, but I wanted to share my first no money down deal.

We made our first real estate investment about six months ago. We bought a two-family foreclosure for $5,000. It was a mess: holes in the wall, broken windows, the gas lines running to the house had been cut–you name it. My husband put a few weeks’ work and about $6,000 in it. We now have a fully rented home for $425 per unit!

As Ed Garcia put it: “You’re driving by the gold on your way to the silver if you don’t have the knowledge to really know what it is your looking for in the first place.”

This post is for all of you that have asked me to share my experiences with you. I hope you find it interesting and inspirational.

Today, I went to the escrow office to pick up the check for my first flip. I got the property under contract for $100,000 and flipped it (double close) to my seller for $123,000. There were a lot moments where I worried a lot about not being able to close the deal.

This letter is long overdue. However, it’s partly your fault for providing such an excellent workshop on creative financing [How to Get Lenders Fighting to Give You Money]

A few months ago, I was looking at the CRE Online website because I have always been interested in real estate investing. There are always several very interesting articles and ideas with which to make money investing in real estate.

This success story is long overdue and with the help I have got from CRE Online, I hope my story can encourage people in their own journey.

First of all I would like to say “thank you” for such a great site to share and gather information on such a great business.