Your House Auctions welcomes you to our new site. We will periodically post content about houses we are buying, remodeling and selling along with some how to tips. Let me begin by telling you how I got started in real estate investing. I lost my job and needed something that I could do that would make money, was fun and recession proof. I knew I did not want to work for someone else but wanted to control all aspects of my business. So I bought my first investment house in September of 2006. I picked the Sherwood Forest neighborhood near the University of Memphis thinking that it would be a good choice because of its proximity to Park and Getwell. The neighborhood was established and has long been a desirable one for first time buyers of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. I knew I wanted to buy for about $60,000 and sell for around $85,000 with a holding cost of $3000 and rehab cost of no more than $10,000. I knew I wanted to try to keep the rehab at a minimum but wanted the house to also have the "WOW" factor. I planned on what I would call minor cosmetic work such as painting the inside and outside, putting down carpet, plus remodeling the kitchen and bathroom. I knew to look only for a 3 bedroom with 2 full baths so that when it came time to sell my house would have an advantage over the 2/1 and 3/1 competition. I bought the house for $60,000 and the seller paid about $3000 of my closing costs plus gave me $1000 for carpets after the closing. I ended up spending $5000 on the holding costs due to some problems in painting the outside in cold weather. $10,000 on the rehab plus another $2000 on appraisals, utilities, insurance and other little things. The buyer had no agent so that helped me. In the end, the profit on paper was around $9500. Not too bad for my first try.
