real estate?

Question

Is it hard to get into the real estate game, as far as buying houses and renting them out?

Answer 1

It is not hard if you have the money to buy a house. It is hard to maintain the property as a landlord sometimes but it depends on your tenants.

To get into the game you need to have the following conditions:

A large enough down payment to lower your interest rate.
A property that is easy to maintain and likeable by rentors.


Most people make money from renting based off of property value increase over the long term. Howerver, right now properties are not gaining value like they did in the last decade. But a lot of people are forclosing and losing their house, which means they can be purchased lower than market value. So now would be a good time to get into the game if you can find a property that is below value, get into it, rent it for a few years until the market value goes back up like it should.

Answer 2

Not really....you just need good credit for a good interest rate and always throw down 20% if you're looking to make a profit in renting.

Now if you're just looking to flip you don't have to worry about the interest rate and 20%, but you do have to flip it fast to make a profit....buy low sell high. Right now it's a buyers/soft market so you would do better to buy and rent. I would suggest looking into buying an apt building maybe 12+ units or a duplex to start low to see if you the what it takes to be a landlord. You can never go wrong in commercial real estate it's more stable than residential. I know b/c I work in commercial real estate! :)

Answer 3

Relative to other (passive) investments...yes it is a bit harder. Is it hard? Nah.

Most folks will search for a house, borrow money to buy the house, insure the rental house, fix it up a bit, advertise for renters, interview renters, select a renter, collect deposits, get legal paperwork signed, collect rent checks, maintain the property. Hopefully you won't have too many repairs to make. Some folks do the repairs themselves & others hire folks to do the repairs.

There are some tax breaks to be had. Let's just hope you can find a good rental property and some dependable renters.

Answer 4

Well, everyone is doing it now, and that's really the only challenge. There are more vacant homes than there are renters in just about any market.

So, either offer the lowest rent price, which will compromise any positive cash flow for yourself, or go into foreclosure when you can't cover the mortgage and/or sell the home.