There are a couple of different and easy ways to invest in real estate without having to actually buy or own a property.
Firstly, if you know of someone who is interested in buying property, become their agent for them.
If you know of someone who wants to sell their house, get the buyer and seller together, arrange a contract and take a “finders fee” for arranging the deal.
If you make 1-2% as a finders fee on arranging the deal for a $200,000 property, you’ve just made yourself $2000-$4000 for very minimal work.
Not bad for simply arranging a buyer for the seller and a seller for the buyer.
Another method is tax lien certificates.
By attending a tax lien certificate auction and purchasing some tax lien certificates, effectively “loan money to a tax delinquent” and paying off their taxes, you can earn interest on the property tax amount.
For the term of the lien certificate, you can earn up to 50% p.a. on your investment. It varies from state to state, but this is best case scenario. Do a little research via Google to find the applicable tax rates for different states.
What happens if the tax delinquent doesn’t pay their taxes and interest? Will you lose your money? No! In that eventuality, you can apply to the governing body for a deed to the house.
Note: Approximately 97% of tax lien certificates are redeemed before their expiry date.
Sure, you don’t want to have to foreclose on the tax delinquents house, but if necessary, taking ownership of the house will easily cover the money you invested.
I’ve mentioned this not because of the fact that this is the intention of investment, as all you want is a return on your investment by gaining interest from the tax debt, but in the eventuality that the investment isn’t returned, you are still covered.
These are just a couple of ways in which you can invest in real estate without buying a property.
I hope you enjoyed the article. There are many other ways also of investing in real estate such as contracts for notes and other such mediums but I thought I’d list two fairly easy and straight forward ways where everyone comes out a winner.
The first one, you get the chance to help match buyers and sellers to achieve their goals and the second one, you help someone behind on their taxes, hold the wolf from the door and charge them a fee for doing so.
Both honorable ways of doing business.