David Hamilton
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7-Step Lease Option Refinance Strategy
Unlike many strategies out there, my 7-Step Lease Option Refinance Strategy achieves what is my biggest investing priority: preserving my capital and minimizing my risks! There are lots of ways to use lease options as a refinance investment strategy for homeowners in need, but most of them do not sufficiently focus on mitigating risks.But for starters, we are only going to work with existing homeowners who are generally established in their communities and have built up some equity in their homes. We do not use this strategy with clients who have no or little equity.Why I use the Lease Option…
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Time To Buy Rental Real Estate?
Trying to crystal ball where the North American real estate markets are heading is like trying to predict where currencies will be on an hourly basis. It’s extremely difficult if not impossible to pinpoint when is the best moment to jump into an investing market, niche or area. What does all this mean to the small investor who either has – or is thinking of purchasing – rental residential real estate?Two Schools of Rental Real Estate ThinkingFirst, let’s look at the fundamentals and really understand what it is we’re evaluating. There is really no such thing as a “national” real estate…
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When Your Real Estate Investments Explode
No one enters into real estate investing with the hope of losing money. One of the main reasons we get into real estate is to make money, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. But do you notice how little information is available about what happens when your real estate investments don’t work out? The truth is, notwithstanding the hype of the late night television and internet gurus, investing in real estate is often riskier than we think.The Best IntentionsWhen I sit down to evaluate a real estate investing opportunity, there are lots of documents to review. For example, on…
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This Simple Lease Option Fix Will Save You A Ton Of Trouble
In the early hurly burly days of lease option rent to own and refinancing – sometime back in the 2000s – managing clients in need, the lease option contracts, and generally all the many moving parts seemed to many of us like the rootin’ tootin’ wild west. There were so many overnight companies springing up to help homeowners with their refinancing, as well as putting young couples into homes they could ill afford.Not surprisingly, many of the transactions went horribly wrong. Lease option operators gained the reputation of fly-by-night shysters who would not only disappear with clients’ security deposits, but…
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Top Ten U.S. States For Foreclosures
Mortgage figures are in for January 2015 and although the overall U.S. economy is picking up, the number of mortgages in arrears and foreclosure is still remarkable. While this is certainly tragic for the homeowners facing foreclosure, it is also a wonderful opportunity for real estate investors.The numbers do show us a few things. First, there are still many states where investors can pick up good deals. Second, as we’ve seen before, foreclosures exist in all markets and in all economies. There are always deals to be made.There are two specific real estate investing strategies you can use when looking…
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Mortgage Foreclosures = Investment Opportunities
The number of mortgage foreclosures can provide insights into the general economy and real estate markets. While this is obviously bad news for some homeowners, this is also good news for real estate investors because those of us who look for below market opportunities need a large pool of potential properties.But, like unemployment, there appears to be a certain lower limit to foreclosures. In other words, even during good economic times, there is number of mortgage foreclosures that will always remain. What this means is really important to investors: it does not matter whether times are good or bad when it comes…
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The Sandwich Lease Option
The Sandwich Lease Option is another lease option strategy that some real estate investors have had success with. However, there are more risks here than a straight lease option refinance so it may not be an appropriate strategy for a novice investor.Still, if you’re having trouble coming up with investment funds or perhaps if your credit isn’t good enough to secure your own first mortgage on a property, then this strategy could be for you.Let’s take a look at how the sandwich works.Two Leases with You in the MiddleThe way the Sandwich Lease Option strategy works is as follows.1. You…
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Going Through The Motions
The expression “going through the motions” epitomizes the way we sometimes think about our jobs, our relationships – in fact, our whole lives. We get trained like monkeys to do things certain ways until we reach the point where we can do them without thinking. This is great efficiency, but what does it do to our human-ness?Countless thinkers and artists have raised the idea that we have become automatons… slaves to our menial tasks.Is this all there is? Is this what we are destined to become?We Stop Being Human When We Stop CaringWhen we stop caring, we stop being human.…
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Investing In Rent To Own Condos
Putting a rent to own deal together is not easy. There are a lot of moving parts and with that comes a higher risk of something going wrong. A rent to own lease option is typically used to put someone into a home for which they do not have a sufficient down payment – or credit history – to purchase it themselves.As an investor, once you qualify the tenant and the property, you purchase the home and the tenant leases it back from you for a set period of time. In order to ensure he has the first right of…
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Top 5 Ethical Lease Option Investing Tips
What does ethical lease option investing mean? Basically, a tenant – either a current homeowner looking for a mortgage solution through lease option refinancing, or someone who wants to purchase a home but does not sufficient down payment funds – signs a lease option contract stipulating that, for a fee, they will retain the first right of refusal to purchase the home in the future.Meanwhile, they will occupy the home and make monthly payments to you. Should they default on their contract, they will lose their lease option “fee”.While this sounds like a “win” for all parties, the truth is…
