[M3tor2nR]

I've been seriously thinking about investing in some property over the summer.

My friend who is a loan agent is making $15k a MONTH on the average and wants to start investing in some property this summer. Maybe some land or houses.

We want to purchase some houses in selected areas after researching the market and buy a house or two. We'll invest in it and rent the place out in the meantime. After a year or two, we will sell it and most likely the price of the houses will have gone up a very good amount. Profits can yeild over $100k per house so we might keep investing in houses and property more and more to make even more money.


So I've been thinking... should I sell my car to invest?? It's been a dream car of mine ever since I first laid my eyes on the E46 M3 when it first came out back in 2001. It's such a nice car and I really love it. But I'm growing older and older so I need to start making some serious cash and I think this might be a good time to do something with my money.


What do you guys think I should do? Keep the car, finish college, find a better job and live on? Or should I sell my car and invest the money that I've saved up including the $50k I'll get from my car and invest in property?? BTW, the car was purchased brand new and only has 5300 miles on it currently.


Such a tuff decision...

[HKS457]

i honestly would, because a property theres always a chance that the value will increase, but all a car will do is decrease its value.

but it all depends on how much are you attached to "cars", are cars something just for you to get to point a to point b, or you need something comfy, or something fast?? its all up to how you feel about cars because if you sell your car u probably have to downgrade to a civic or a truck as a daily driver.

if you really want to go fast, theres alwyas a bike =]

[k1D3Ck]

Oh yea, i sent you the pm, but if you want to make some serious money, i would suggest you move.
Me personally moving out of cali was a good thing. However some people, esp cali people cant seem to do it, and dont believe in life outside cali.

[azn akira]

i would sell it and invest in realestate.

but isnt the housing market going to take a plunge soon? idk much about the market but thats what i heard. isnt the fed raising rates? buy the house in a few years when the market is at its lowest then sell when it goes back up

[rich.paekk]

I would sell the car, invest the money and couple years later get the crazy amount of $$$$ and then buy another house AND a better car.

[M3tor2nR]

i would sell it and invest in realestate.

but isnt the housing market going to take a plunge soon? idk much about the market but thats what i heard. isnt the fed raising rates? buy the house in a few years when the market is at its lowest then sell when it goes back up

Yea the rates aren't as good as it was before and alot of real estate prices haven't been goin up like they use to. But we don't hear prices of houses going down. There are still many areas where houses are still going to rise quite a bit. Places not necessarily in California but in other states as well.


Hmm... decisions decisions. It will no doubt suck having only my Truck as my car but I seriously need to start making some serious money. None of this hourly wage bs.

[boost]

even with where the market sits right now, you will never lose money. My parents has been doing it for nearly 2 decades now with houses all over the Northern Cali (mainly in San Jose) with lots of luck. Been quite a decline in the past 3-4 years in our area.

how is your credit score? That would definately help you alot in this kind of investing.

Sell the M3 and drive your truck for the mean time. Focus more in school and wait for the cash to roll in. Nothing is better than that. Once my house is paid off, i plan on doing the same; investing in real estate and go to school full time to try and be an optometrist.

[chyea dann]

sigh..but you created a close bond with your M3 :\

i say sell it for now, buy TWO with all the money you rake in from real estate.

but seriously though, i think a sacrifice now would make all the difference later. good luck~

[roflingsam]

Oh yea, i sent you the pm, but if you want to make some serious money, i would suggest you move.
Me personally moving out of cali was a good thing. However some people, esp cali people cant seem to do it, and dont believe in life outside cali.

can you tell me why?

and yeah .. i dont think house prices ever go down.

[TRINAMUI]

What ever your choice maybe just know i will always be there right behind you and supporting you.

[M3tor2nR]

What ever your choice maybe just know i will always be there right behind you and supporting you.

thanks baby.

[tosei]

What do you guys think I should do? Keep the car, finish college, find a better job and live on? Or should I sell my car and invest the money that I've saved up including the $50k I'll get from my car and invest in property??

Wait... are you saying you're going to drop out of college if you start investing?

[Malicious]

if u know u can make a lot of money off the houses.. then i would invest and get a better car later on (dont get me wrong... i love the m3 too and its a really nice car lucky you!!)

[some-azn-guy]

Such a tuff decision...

it's not all that tuff is it?

okay, i can relate to you and your reasons why you're considering to keep the e46. sure, it's a very nice car. it handles well enough. it's fast enough. it's even comfortable enough to drive on a daily basis. and i can't forget to add, it's PIMP

but even with all it's merits, i'd say you should sell it. going with real estate is always the better idea. the price on real estate never ceases to go UP; unless something catastrophic happens, you'll probably never see it go DOWN.

you could really make it too..if you kept investing over a few years, while working a normal day job after you finish school. a friend of mine works at the toyota plant here. one of his supervisors retired at age 26. he was making all right money being a supervisor and all, but he didn't spend that money on himself. he started buying property. after his 2nd house, he was making enough at his day job (est. 80-90k) that whenever he went to the bank and requested a loan to buy property...they pretty much just handed him the money. after working at toyota for 6 years, the guy was 26; and had 12homes. and the homes were rented out, it got to the point where it became his main source of income, it not only paid his bills, but the houses while being rented out, paid for themselves. the guy sold 7 of them, walked away with over 1mil and quit working at toyota. so now, i'm pretty sure that guy is just doing real-estate, and living off it. the way i see it, real estate basically comes down to one thing, don't pay for the house, rent it out and get them to pay for it. cuz hey, if you're not paying it, then it's basically a house you get for free. all the while, your name is on the title for the house; and that my friend, grants you the power to go to a bank and ask for another piece of property. you might be in debt..but the way i've always seen our North American economy...

this is a continent where DEBT truly does build CREDIT


that's just my thoughts on it at least.
the bottom line is, you should do whatever you want.

[incyphe]

I'm sorry to say, but you've missed the boat on the real estate boom, and now is not the time to get in, especially in overheated areas like California, Nevada, the entire Northeast, and Florida.

The only way to make money in real estate right now is to pick up properties through foreclosure before they hit the auction, but you'd need to know someone on the inside to do that, not to mention a healthy warchest, and balls of steel.

Just look how many people replied here think 'real estate' never goes down? People have very short term memory, and most young first time buyers these days never lived through the pain of housing crashes of 80s and even early 90s. These things happen in cycle, and right now, we're done.



Look at the red graph. You see the two humps in 1980s and 1990s? Those were two housing market booms followed by bad crashes. And those two really hurt. Look where we're at 2006. Can you say with confidence that the price will just flatten off?

Your BMW is worth $50,000 and it'll depreciate slowly, certainly slower than the life of your car loan. But if you buy a property now at $300,000, and market drops just 10% in a year, you're down $30,000. Not to mention 6% fee it'll cost to sell the house, which is another $15,000. The housing prices in many areas went up 200-300% over the past few years. You'd be a fool to think that 10% drop from where we are right now is inplausible. Some markets are due for 50% correction.

Forget about renting. Property values have gone up so high that your rental income will be far far far less than mortgage+tax, and you'd be putting in thousands of dollars into properties that you don't even live in.

My recommendation is sell that car. And don't get into real estate. This real estate boom was fed on, and kept alive by sellers finding bigger fools who think they missed out on the boom. And if you buy one now (thinking property will go up or even flatten off), you'll be just about the biggest fool.

[Hasu]

Me and my cousins are in the mortgage industry and we make a very good amount of money. We're all under 25 years of age but own a 1.5 million dollar home along with many cars. We're opening up our own office this summer. Real estate is the way to go!

[roflingsam]

i doubt you will profit 100k a year each house yet alone both houses.

[M3tor2nR]

i doubt you will profit 100k a year each house yet alone both houses.

I guess I exaggerated a bit. My friend's Co-Workers were telling him about what happened to his investments and told him that making $100K in a year is very do-able if he played it smart.



I'm still debating and looking into it before I follow through...

[Jiraiya]

Me and my cousins are in the mortgage industry and we make a very good amount of money. We're all under 25 years of age but own a 1.5 million dollar home along with many cars. We're opening up our own office this summer. Real estate is the way to go!

Haha, yeah live that American dream, spend until you can spend no more, borrow to limit, and when the bottom falls out file for bankruptcy. All flash, no cash.

Incyphe summed it nicely. No one knows for sure what will happen to housing prices. But looking at real estate in general in USA, with the price appreciations seen in the past few years, they are not inline with wage earning level increases. Housing prices are being jacked by speculative investors. Could this be a bubble that pops suddenly or one that deflates slowly, with appreciation decreasing to single digit increases instead of double digit growth, very possibly.

I don't know abou selling the car, but having a healthy saving rate / emergency cash fund is important. The majority of the depreciation happens in the first few years of owning a car, I don't know if you think the cash is worth it especially if you have kept the car in pristine condition. Based on that, I would keep the car, manage expenses, and save up. Do not go into real estate unless you can say to yourself that you can take a 10-20% drop in housing prices, and still be able to survive without filing for bankruptcy or committing suicide.

[k1D3Ck]

When you say plung, i guess you are talking about what you hear on the news about the real estate bubble.
I think they are referring to it as the bubble will bust, as in it will hit limit and all rates will fall causing a downfall in prices on houses, and then it will become harder to sell, since it will be harder to get loans out, since the interest rates will rise, and the bank will hold more, i guess the reserve ratios will increase because of uncertain future (economy). Becomes more unstable.

But again, i said my part, i tried doing this. Me and friends, bought several houses, hired $5/hr students and used them, plus us and did alot of hard labor, and then finding sellers or getting it reappraised and selling it to a seller. And taking the fee cost off and getting the sale on the house and splitting it.

But i would probably never do it again since it was way to much work. There are alot more smarter ways to make money, this is a good route, but trust me, its alot of work. Yes i do know making money takes effort, but some take more then others, and what seperates hard labor and easier labor, is your knowledge.

After i started to get a degree, i realized, that my time by the hour was worth more then what i was making doing these jobs. For me, yes i am still young (20), but since i guess i live in missouri, i got alot of different chances working since some people dont go to college and do these jobs.

But for me time is money, and my time is worth more then what i was making working constructions getting paid $37/hr, or fixing and selling houses. I know my degree will outpay all these jobs, and so i decided, focusing more on it, and taking a good hit on my financial standing. By that i mean, my credit is somehwat good, still in the upper 700, however, i do have loans out still and continue to pull them out, but its going to all work out. lol.

Wow that was long, I guess its up to you. I had to do alot of research, buy books and videos and get personal help from other sources. I have a collection of it in my room. I guess you dont need to go overboard with it.

Oh yea, another thing, there is a method people say about not investing any of your personal money to do this, renovating and selling, and using strictly the bank loan and then selling the house, and clearing the loan and making a profit. I wasn't able to do this, since our houses werent in the millions since we dont live in cali..lol, but more in the hundred of thousand. So we had to use our money first so maybe you have a method or your personal bank and you have a good history, that was the first step, was getting trust from my banker.

But it was rather easy since my parents own a chinese restaurant, and we been doing business since 1992. Plus i had loans previously from them and had a good payback history.

Oh just read your pm. That sounds great man, but again, as 18 year olds, we didnt have as much money to start with, plus the houses we bought were in decent shape, took alot less money then buying the land and building. Althought we all had the skills to renovate, i knew how to do most the housing electrical and had bulding schemes when we added new rooms.

But then again my friends or partners also had a very strong background in construction.

Again, it sounds like a good idea, but just have enough money when house wont sell, or its a bad time of year, this might last from 6 months to 4 years. And you should have enough to live off of to cover this mishaps. I had to experience this as well, and hit a bad spot in my credit history.

100k is do-able, but i dont know how cali is, but dont you have to buy land? I am guessing outside cali? Still land cost must be really high. I cant discuss how much i made, or what we were selling it for since as the 3 of us decided not to talk about it, but i cant tell how much you might make, but start up is the hardest, then hitting the dead times ( the time between working and selling).

Damn sorry for it being so long, but i had one hell of an experience doing this, another reason why we didnt build was the fact that there were plenty of good houses around to just spend less, fix then sell. But we proably still wouldnt have been able to afford to build from scratch.

Another thing, is he is right, the boom is gone, but trust me, people need houses, but i just heard recently more people are moving outside of cities, so divisions were the way to go. Similar pattern, there are so many more material to make more energy efficient houses, and using that to advertise is good as well, since electrical bills are going to become outrageous.

Oh yea, but the similar pattern on divisions i guess are alot cheaper then building full scale housings, might not make as much, but alot less risk, since it is cheaper to create and sell, or rent.

Oh yea, another thing, i dont think people get is that land can never lose its price, it only goes up, houses can go down and overall worth can deappreciate, but not land itself. In fact land generates money. Esp. here in missouri.

Example: My friend just pulled a 60k loan, bought 60 acres. He had a logger come appraise how much his trees (logs) would be worth, it came out to be around 40k. So now once he starts logging, he can generate, plus he is clearing land. I am not sure what he plans on doing with it. Yes his land is in the country, but if you get a map out, i think its obtainable at the city hall, of all the land in that certain county, and the people who own it, you will see most of it are owned by people who dont live in the county or even in the state. More and more people are buying land, maybe even randomly, but i just wanted to simple state that. Land is a long term investment, but houses can be short term. So think about what your shooting for before jumping.

I bought over $300 dollars worth of books i think, just to learn. Didnt absorb everything, but i do plan on doing commercial building, land investing, and residential building.

KK Estates, sounds nice huh?
lol

Sorry, but best of luck to you. Damn i never made useful post's before.