Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Mistakes, Life is full of them. The biggest mistake that was probably made was thinking that investing in real estate was going to be easy and that the money was going to come over night.

The plan was to buy a house and make some minor upgrades, hold the house for two years and then put it back on the market. The concept is right but this was literally the entire plan. There were no details, no numbers, no estimates and no time frames. Now I realize that anyone that is reading this that has a clue on how to do real estate or anything on a relative scale is either laughing uncontrollably or shaking his or her head in shame but wait, it gets worse.

I had found a house and all it needed was a coat of paint and some minor repairs throughout. The mortgage on this house was three times my monthly income, yes three times. Don't ask me how I qualified for the loan or why in the world I signed those papers because I honestly don't know either. Someone should be beating me over the head with a bag of kittens for all eternity. My wife and I struggled in this house for a year blowing our savings making repairs and keeping up with the mortgage. ..I think it is obvious what happened next. .. Foreclosure.

This financial mistake was a huge eye opener. I could definitely do better.