How to be a Real Estate Investor: or Ensuring You’ll Burn for Eternity in the 8th Ring of Hell

• Hire a Realtor because face it, what do you know about Realty?
• Find a hot real estate market. It doesn’t have to be anywhere near where you live. Actually, it’s probably better if it’s not.
• Buy a property without ever even stepping foot on the front lawn, thereby snatching it from under the nose of some pathetic sap who actually wants a house to live in.
• Take the fair market value of the house and multiply it by 2
• Then add 30%
• Next add another 20%
• Add another 10% for any special features, such as a fireplace, no holes in the roof, or a carpet that’s only five years old.
• When a potential buyer offers a reasonable price on the house tell their Realtor that you’re insulted and reject their offer outright.
• Then tell them that the most you’d consider knocking off the price is $2,000
• When you do find a sucker…I mean, buyer, dictate all of the terms of the sale--pick the Escrow company, the mortgage broker, the inspectors, and dictate anything else you can think of.
  
• If the buyer asks you to fix anything treat them like a whiny child:
• “You’ll get nothing and like it!”
• Drag your feet on all responses to buyer—that way you’ll run out the clock and there won’t be time for them to demand you fix that drain that’s probably clogged with cement.
• Don’t let the buyer measure the rooms, remember, you took five whole minutes guessing the sizes of those rooms you’ve never seen for the MLS listing.
• Stick to your guns about not fixing anything for the buyer. Remember that they are probably desperate for that house because they have probably had at least three other houses that were gone by the time their Realtor got their offer in.