Opinions on property

You have a great idea about finding a multi-unit and living in one unit and renting out the others. It is great your starting your investing career at an early age because you may be able to retire by 30 or 40. Banks look more favorably on owner occupied buildings and usually require less of a down payment.

I might recommend looking for something a little better then the condemned building you discussed. The market is soft and sellers are a little more motivated to sell. Also, see if you can find a Bank owned property that the banks call REOs. These properties usually sell at a better price and you may be able to even get financing through the bank. The best banks are the small local banks in your area.

You may want to join an investment club and meet other investors. They share contacts such as mortgage brokers in your area, etc. You may be able to find an equity partner to put up the cash for a down payment to assist with your multi-unit idea. The first propety is always the hardest. Once you get the first property the next few should be easier. Good luck on all your deals. Believe and Achieve! Indiana- Joe

Thank you, for your input it helps more than you may know.

What would be the best way to obtain listings of REO's or bank owned buildings?

I am still open to any ones thoughts willing to share them.

You can often get lists from state records and a bank's reo division. However, for ease, speed and features you cannot go wrong with a paid service.

We offer a program for sale on this site called Foreclosure Alert. There are other similar services but we have an exclusive contract with data provider that is generally known for better data in this niche.

That sounds great and I know what your talking about, but I'm a poor art student and I'm doing this with nothing pretty much so any paid service is almost out of the question. I did notice that many of these paid services have free trials. I was just a little conscientious about giving a random site my card information.

Where would I go to get the state records? Court House? Thanks for the input. I'll be looking at different banks now.

Goblin Ink,
You could check the REOs by typing in online REO, your city and state and maybe the zip code in the area you are looking. Usually a whole list will come up. There will be the street name but no number. What I do is I map out the property that gives an idea of where the property is located. With that you could then do a drive through and try to identify the property. In mappng out the property, a picture will be included. Good Luck and God Bless.

Sandra