Real estate investing

[Russell]

Does anyone have any particular books they liked when starting out ? I'd be interested in hearing them.

Though my biggest challenge right now is picking a state and city. Where I am (in CA) the prices are horrendously expensive so a property will never be cash flow positive. Texas while cheap doesn't seem like it'll show much appreciation in the next 10 yrs, even 20 yrs. Maybe Florida ? Ideally I'd like to buy a property that I rent out for 1% or more of the purchase price. So a $90k property renting for $900+

[cercis]

1% sounds very ambitious. I know that I wouldn't pay 1% of my purchase price in rent for my home. The house we were renting was $790/month and could have sold for $90-120k (depending upon now quickly she wanted to sell it).

That's the problem with real estate investing, it can be very difficult to make money at it, especially when you consider taxes and insurance.

[jmjj215]

The key is to buy a bargain. If you're going in paying retail, and leveraging at all, you're going to have a tough time being CF+ on the deal. We're heading to Texas end of this summer. I sure hope it appreciates more than you say

[Russell]

Jesse, what part of TX are you planning to move to and why did you decide on TX ? I hope I'm wrong because TX has lots of land and quite cheap. However, from little research I did and talked to a couple of people who lived in TX I came to the conclusion that the property value won't appreciate a whole lot, based on past performance. In fact, I hear Salt Lake City is expected to do well in the next 10 yrs ?

[Ima saver]

I had 3 rentals in the same town that I lived it and the experience was horrible. I lost lots of money on all of them. Now land is a different thing. I bought a lot on the river for $16,000 and sold it for $22,000 10 years ago. Now the same land is going for $250,000 and up. I would stick with land in a popular place.

[34saving]

There are about 17.2 million nuiances with trying to make money through real estate investment. Personally, I'd be really scared to do anything in a market I didn't know inside and out. For me that means investments that are close to home, but there's nothing that says you can't learn another market. I would think one of the problems with Texas is that very little is landlocked in any way, so you're always going to have competition from new construction whenever the market is performing reasonably well. They've also basically outlawed lease-options, which are a pretty powerful way of making money.

I'd check out the web before reading a specific book. Personally I like:
http://reiplace.com/newsgroup/list.php?f=1 Their focus is flipping, but they talk about just about everything. http://www.thecreativeinvestor.com/r...rum-index.html is sort of okay, but it seems if you ever want to do something as "complex" as doing a search they want you to sign up for their $10/mo service -- at least! The basic membership that lets you read the forums is free though.

[cercis]

McAllen, TX was listed as one of the 10 cities to watch by some group (it was on Yahoo! this morning). Supposedly they expect the values to rise quite well.

McAllen is about 2 hours from South Padre Island and right on the border. Apparently it's a hot spot for Mexican Nationals for shopping. It's also a place where the US managers of Mexican factories live. PLUS it stays warm all winter.

[Russell]

You're right I think it was Forbes that listed McAllex, TX as the best in one of their categories.

Cercis, if I asked you to name two best areas in either San Antonio or Austin (or even other parts of TX) as far as high class, clean and A+ grade neighborhoods which would you recommend ?

Jesse, same question for you for Salt Lake City or UT in general ?

[cercis]

I don't know. I've only lived in TX for a year and don't spend much time in either of those cities (although I really like both cities). Austin is very liberal for Texas. San Antonio is a HUGE city that still feels like a small town.

I'm not a good person to ask about neighborhoods. I feel uncomfortable in "high class" neighborhoods - like I'm trying to be something I'm not (I'm a small town girl and will never fit in with upper-middle class people).

[Russell]

Fair enough, I too felt the same way as you. But recently we moved to an upscale area due to it being close to our workplaces and we find it so much more comfortable. No one revving their monster trucks at 10pm at night, no one out drinking beer in their front yards and leaving beer bottles on the side walk. No suspicious looking friends of your neighbors roaming about your house. Its just very quiet and peaceful here, that's all we're looking for in our future neighborhood, if we can afford it.