The Little Known Secret For Making A 6-figure Income As A Real Estate Investor In Todays Market

Earning a six-figure income as a real estate investor in today's market may seem like an unachievable pipe dream, especially if your credit is as battered and bruised as the economy and your attention is focused how you're going to fill your gas tank or put food on the table. Just as it can sometimes take a little creativity to turn a collection of random ingredients in your cabinet into a scrumptious meal that your family will enjoy, there are ways of reaching the pinnacle of real estate investing success if you're willing to think outside the box and find creative solutions to your real estate financing needs.

First, I'll acknowledge that having cash and good credit will make it easier to get where you're going in the world of real estate investing, but thousands of entrepreneurial thinkers have accomplished much more than you might believe simply by believing in themselves and finding alternative ways of reaching their goals. Here are three ways that you can do the same -- today!

Wholesaling -- There are many ways of skinning a cat, and wholesaling is a tremendous way of getting into the real estate investing game without sticking your neck too far out on the line. First, with wholesaling, you aren't actually purchasing real estate. Instead, what you are doing is locating property that can be acquired at a great price and placing it under contract.

Once you have a signed contract in hand, you assign your right to purchase the property to another investor. He or she will actually close on the property in your place -- and will pay you a premium for the right to do so. This premium, referred to as an assignment fee, will be paid to you by the investor to whom you assign your contract, when he or she closes on the property. This amount will vary depending upon the arrangement you work out with the investor to whom you assign the property, but can be at least $5,000 and will sometimes be as much as $15,000-$20,000 -- just for locating a good investment property and negotiating a lucrative deal with the seller.

Private Money -- Your bank account may not have enough cash in it to purchase much at a dollar store, but you can still play at the highest levels of the real estate investing game by using your head and attracting private money for any number of real estate investments. One way of doing this is by locating someone with cash that they would be willing to invest on a short-term basis. You could then take this cash, locate a property that could be purchased from a highly-motivated seller for just pennies on the dollar, make some minor repairs, and quickly re-sell the property at below-market prices for a fast profit. You could use some of your profits from the deal to repay your investor -- with interest. For instance, if you locate a private money investor with $40,000 that they would be willing to invest for the short-term, you could possibly return $45,000-$50,000.

If you don't know someone with this much cash, don't despair! You can pool cash from multiple investors until you have enough to put together a deal. The only limitation in your use of this strategy will be your imagination and your ability to locate private investors. Fortunately, there are plenty of private investors with money to lend. Many of them were burned by the stock market and are anxious to get back some of the money lost in the recent collapse of the stock market. While they're not yet ready to dip their toes back into the stock market, they DO want to reap real financial rewards from a smart investment -- and real estate could be just the kind of investment that they are looking for!


Hard Money Lenders -- If your credit situation hovers somewhere between weak and poor, there is still money available for real estate investing. The problem is, it will cost you more. Hard money lenders have cash available for a real estate investment, but they will charge a premium for it, especially if you have a low credit score.

There's good news, though: Real estate in today's market can be acquired for pennies on the dollar, so you can make a deal work -- even with the higher costs of financing through a hard money lender. If you utilize a hard money lender for your financing needs, your best bet is to make it a short-term loan -- just long enough to buy a low-priced property, repair it, and re-sell it at below-market prices. You'll gain the cash you need, without pushing huge amounts of cash towards a high-priced financing source.

These three methods can let you participate in real estate investing right away and can help you to build up a substantial pile of cash. Take care of any credit issues that you might have and then other, more traditional financing sources will open up other opportunities that you can put to good use in developing a massive real estate investing portfolio and reaching all of your hopes and dreams. Get started today and make this the beginning of a long and rewarding real estate investing career!