Buying houses for no money down.

Buy real estate with no money!

You probably have seen the late night infomercials, with a slick salesman talking to you from his mansion about zero down investing. I have seen people spend a ton of money on these programs and courses that promise riches overnight, but the only person that gets rich is the one selling this so called information.

Can you buy real esate without money?

Absolutely, but you have to bring something else to the table. To buy investment property you need money, credit and/or ambition. One or two of these things can overcome a lack of the other. The gurus want you to think that all you need is their course and you will be buying houses in no time without any money. There is a whole lot more to it than that.

Money:

It is very easy to buy a house if you have a fistful of cash. I have seen people lose a lot of their own cash, because they feel that if they have the money they can go buy any house and turn a profit. They get lazy and do not do their due diligence because it is not required.

Credit:

With strong credit you can go get a 100% loan or a 95% loan. There are more and more no money down loan programs out there, but you have to be careful. If you have a house that is 100% financed and the value goes down you will come out of pocket to sell it. With good credit you can also pull out the money to make repairs, this way you can pay other people to make the necessary repairs. With todays bad credit loans there are more loans available.

Ambition and Hard Work:

This is where the real no money down deals come in. If you spend your days looking at houses, calling FSBO's (for sale by owner), watching the MLS and (here's the secret) making a ton of offers, you can find no money down deals. This is hard frustrating work because these deals are few and far between. The jackpot you are looking for is called a motivated seller. This is someone that just wants out of their house. Every investor should be looking for these deals, even if they have millions in the bank and have a credit score of 850.

No money down deals are easy to do, but hard to find.

There are a lot of ways to do zero money down deals:

• Subject To (take over payments)


• Owner financing


• 100% bank financing


• Combination of bank and owner financing (wraps)


• Silent money partner


• Wholesaling


• Borrow from friends and family

This is a short list of the infinite number of ways to buy a house without using your own money. The moral to this story is that you can do these deals, but it is very hard work. It is frustrating looking for these needle in the haystack deals, but they are out there for the few that are willing to work. You might have to start out with no money and spend months looking for that one deal and then use that profit to buy another one. Even the veteran investors look for no money down deals. The less capital you have tied up, the more houses you are able to buy.

The real secret to investing is... hard work, ambition, and creativity.