If you’re considering becoming a Hard Money Lender, you would be well served to become a Real Estate Investor beforehand This article dovetails off of my last one, “When It Comes to Hard Money Lending, Stay Local,” which relates the wisdom of concentrating your Hard Money Lending business in your local market because of the depth of market knowledge you can attain, and the degree of control you can assert over your deals

When it comes to Hard Money Lending, I have 3 important words of advice: Keep It Local In a perfect world you could make a hard money loan to someone in another state, trust that the appraisal they had provided you with was legitimate and feel secure that in the event of default you would be protected by the equity in the property

Technique #2, Options: Whereas Lease-options are a way for a buyer to take control of a property with very little risk on his part, Options present a way for the buyer to take control of a property with absolutely no risk on his part An Option agreement is a sales agreement with one difference: while a sales agreement states that the buyer "will" buy the property for a certain price and terms, an Option agreement states that the buyer "may" buy the property for a certain price and terms

Technique #3, Sales Agreement: When I first started out in the Real Estate Investment game I bought a lot of properties on Sales Agreements – called Land Contracts in some states A Sales Agreement is a contract of sale between the buyer and the seller wherein the buyer agrees to pay a certain price for the property, and the seller provides financing for a portion of that price, agreeing to accept monthly payments amortized over a certain period of time and at a certain rate of interest

I talk to people all the time who either have bad credit or no money, or both, who want to invest in real estate The easy answer is to tell them to save their money and pay off their debts

I read an article in The Wall Street Journal titled, "Worried Sellers Splurge On Home Renovations" The gist is this: We're in a Bear Real Estate Market, and sellers fearful of having their houses languish unsold are spending tens of thousands of dollars on renovations and upgrades to make them "marketable