I live in Northern California. I started looking at Creative Real Estate Online in 2001. When I began to explore real estate investing, I had closed a business on the east coast and returned to northern California to care for my mother and support other family members who had cared for her during a long illness.
My credit was a mess because of the business closing, and my husband was still on the east coast working on community development projects. It seemed that we could do great things for others, but our own fiscal condition was not great. To make a long story short, I used your website information along with real estate books from many of the authors you feature on this site.
We began to clean up our credit in 2002. We got on track with our loan and credit card payments and began to save some money. Using strategies gleaned from the CRE Online Newsletter and other real estate sites, we made an offer on a brand-new duplex. We were able to negotiate a loan although our FICO scores were below 700.
We moved into the property on November 4, and our loan was 100% with no money down. We paid $12,000 in closing costs, and our renters pay 50% of the mortgage. We are working with the builder to option at least one more duplex scheduled to be completed in Summer 2005. The property is appraised at $425,000, and the new units will sell for $465,000.
Thanks for this site and all of the great information. We are back on track and have a new career that we can continue to build even when we retire. God bless you in your work!