R J Palano
Buying houses at auction: This is exactly what I do
There is nothing like the adrenaline rush of buying houses at auction. It’s comparable to sky diving and spear fishing, with one exception: You can make a nice living and make a lot of money with a well-conceived plan of acquiring houses to flip and to hold. As promised, I ...
Two tips to follow if you are buying investment property at auction
Some of the best real estate opportunities come by way of auction. These can be mortgage foreclosure auctions, government auctions or in general online auctions like Auction.com or RealtyBid.com. However, you must exercise care before entering into any agreements or signing anything and have your price points determined prior to ...
Two critical keys to know before you bid on investment property at auction
When I preview houses prior to mortgage foreclosure sales or any type of auction there are two critical key things that I do. There is no substitute for experience and I have done this thousands of times. First, I determine if this is the type of house I will buy ...
The No. 1 most important thing about buying a house at auction
If you’re watching “Flip this House” or “Property Wars” on television, take my advice: Turn it off. These shows are orchestrated BS showing potential buyers doing inadequate research hoping they find a pot of gold in a house. If this is your approach, you will lose. You would be surprised ...
4 key reasons for buying houses at auction
When I look at a prospective property that I will make an offer on at an auction, I know right there and then what my plans are for that property and how I will exit it. This thinking is critical prior to making offers or bidding at auction. If you ...
An introduction to buying houses at auction
I bought my first house at auction in 1979 in Williamsville, New York and I paid $23,200 for it. That house was rehabbed for under $8,000 and was sold for a profit of slightly over $20,000 within three months. It only took me one transaction to get hooked buying homes ...
Lesson No. 5 in build to rent – Permit fees, rights and HOAs
There is a lot more to building real estate investment houses than you might think, unless you are a builder. Permit fees are self-explanatory, as you can get the information from the county where the lots are located. However, sometimes a developer who went bankrupt did not live up to ...
When it makes sense to sell the lots instead of build on them: Build to rent lesson No. 4
I used to be primarily a wholesaler in Florida, but this dried up as investors abandoned the market. The market went up so fast in the early 2000s that is was not sustainable and led to our real estate bubble. Everyone I know that was in the real estate business ...
Build-to-rent lesson No. 3: What does it cost?
Did you wonder what it cost to build a house? Have you heard prices from $50.00 a square foot to $300 a square foot? There are various costs that you want to separate in order to understand the true cost. I suggest that you have a separate cost for: The ...
What I learned the hard way in build-to-rent: Lesson No. 2
When equity funds like Blackstone rushed into Atlanta and other cities in 2012, I knew I could not compete head-to-head with them in bidding for foreclosures, so I decided to head down the path of build-to-rent. In the last column (Lesson No. 1), I mentioned the importance of knowing your ...
Build to rent lesson No. 1 – Know your builder
The idea of build to rent hit me back in 2012 as Equity Funds like Blackstone rushed into Atlanta and other cities, and embarked on a campaign to buy thousands of houses for residential rentals. Unless you were at the mortgage foreclosure auctions yourself like I was, you would never ...
What is the No. 5 most common mistake real estate investors make?
I remember being with three Chinese buyers from Toronto two years ago and I showed them houses all day. They loved what I showed them, but at the end of the day they told me that they thought the market was going to drop more. I actually think the market ...
What is the No. 4 most common mistake real estate investors make?
This ties right in with buying houses in the wrong part of the country and buying low-income houses. You should ask yourself the same questions I ask myself when I am considering a house to purchase: “Who can I sell this house to for more money than I paid for ...
What is the No. 3 most common mistake investors make?
Buying inexpensive, low-income houses looks excellent on paper until you count the cost in terms of time and money. I’ve owned as many as 350 low-income houses at one time with 143 tenants on Section 8. These are exactly the type of properties you want to avoid as they will ...
I lost money on tech and stocks and why I won’t on real estate
Let me clue you in on a little secret that took me about 30 years to figure out. I’ll share it with you in the hopes that you will avoid some of my mistakes. As I was growing up in the business world, every time my friends were making money ...
Ten questions that will help you avoid the second most common mistake in real estate investing
Buying in the wrong markets. Imagine that. Many investors bought houses through promoters in areas that are declining and have subsidized rents from the Federal government with Section 8. These properties will have continuous maintenance issues and may never go up in value. The U.S. is made up of 50 ...
What is the key to negotiation?
RJ Palano here from BuyCashFlowProperties.com. First a little background. I’ve been involved in the acquisition of real estate since 1977 when I bought my first house. Since that time, I’ve owned and sold thousands of houses, a couple office buildings and apartments. The houses I’ve been involved in span over ...
