Real Estate Investing – Finding Cheap Houses

Real estate investing expertise can certainly accommodate the luxury home market. In some ways, the upper end of the housing marketplace produces easier success than the lower end. More skill, however, is required to sell the luxury home. But more important, supply and demand is critical in selling the luxury home. To get “stuck” with any home that does not sell easily can be treacherous, but sluggish sales for the luxury home can be disastrous.

“Cheap homes” are at the other end of the housing spectrum. “Cheap homes” abound everywhere. Every community in the country has cheap homes, because the predominance of the population lives in inexpensive housing. More people comprise the middle and low income bracket than the high income bracket.

“Cheap homes” is a very ambiguous term that is relative to an area. For example, “cheap homes” have lower value in a rural community than in a populous area like New York City. But even adjoining counties in any State may maintain different definitions of “cheap,” even though separated by only a few miles.

“Cheap homes” do not reference slums or ghettos necessarily. Real estate investing in these areas might embrace federal grants or HUD Section 8 housing.

My focus in this article is the use of “cheap homes” as a starting place for a real estate investing career. “Cheap homes” in this article is NOT the bank “red lined” crime area, or where drugs and prostitutes are rampant, or where housing has been severely abused or neglected by property-owners and/or tenants. And “cheap homes” in this article is not the burned-out or dilapidated building.

My definition of “cheap homes” for the beginning real estate investor is the less-expensive housing that accommodates the middle or middle-low class citizen. The demand for this housing is usually high and constant. The risk for real estate investing is usually low. And the effort needed to penetrate this marketplace is easiest.

I get occasional calls questioning the existence of "cheap homes" in certain parts of the country. These calls usually come from California and certain states in the northeast like Maryland. The caller has read my web site and challenges me, “You can’t find a cheap house here!” Now, we all recognize that the medium pricing index for housing varies all over the country. “Cheap” means a different price to everyone. But the outcry of these challengers is that Los Angeles has no “cheap” houses, with its average housing cost exceeding $600,000.

Here’s my response to these callers. Drive into downtown L.A. and locate the city’s tallest office building. Find the janitor. Ask him where he lives, or follow him home. He may drive out 25 or 50 miles from work. But he knows where the “cheap home” can be found. He has already done the research. He has done his homework. He has found decent housing for his family, and it’s not in a high crime area. Drug dealers, prostitutes and pimps are not roaming the streets. The houses are not beat-up and deteriorating. He has a good job and a decent salary, he is middle class, and he has found a “cheap house.” Chances are, his whole neighborhood is a good target area for searching out a “cheap house” for starting a real estate investing career. These properties can be found everywhere.

I live in Nashville, Tennessee and not in Los Angeles. Housing is a little cheaper in the South. I bought $1 million in “cheap houses” during each of my first two years when I started my real estate investing career. I had acquired $10 million of these “cheap houses” within 4 years. I’ll bet the ranch that I could duplicate that same success in L.A. or any area of the country. Real estate investing is real estate investing, wherever you live, and relatively speaking, “cheap houses” abound everywhere.

I contend that “cheap houses” are the lowest risk property for beginning a real estate investing career. And I argue that “cheap houses” can be found all over our country.

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Phil Speer, Ph.D., started his real estate investing career 25 years ago. Without the availability of credit and using only a $10 bill, he purchased $1 million in properties in his first year, and had accumulated $10 million in properties by his fourth year. His net worth was $2 million in only his third year of investing. He was featured in a Wall St.Journal editorial as most successful investor in the Nothing Down Real Estate Movement, and was honored with a Caribbean cruise as top investor of the year. In his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, he has been a businessman and Human Resources Consultant for 30 years. He is an author, speaker and seminar director. To learn how to profit in real estate investing, even without cash or credit, read his report at http://www.CashinHouses.com/.

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