Get Becky’s Guide To Buying Land here.
The first step is to find a cheap house, you’re not going to get a $300,000 house with no money down and bad credit.
In my book I have a chapter where I list a few good websites to look on to find cheap land and houses. Just now today I found a 2 Bed 2 Bath house on almost an acre for $14,000 in Florida.
It makes it way way easier if you know exactly what you want, so you can find that. Otherwise you’re going to be distracted and sidetracked looking at a million different options. You could be stuck looking at houses. When I say know what you want I mean knowing what size property you want and where you want to live.
There are a lot of fixer uppers out there that you can get at a good price. You have more room to finagle on a fixer upper than a brand new house.
Let’s define what no money down means. Usually a bank wants 10% down for a mortgage. So if you’re buying a $200,000 house that’s $20,000. If you follow my plan you’re whole house only costs $20,000 total. So you could just buy it outright or the down payment is only $2,000.
Since you have bad credit the best option is to buy your house in cash, which you can do because it’s the price of a down payment and the best part is you can buy it for $20,000 and be mortgage free, instead of the 20k just being a down payment you being in debt for 30 yrs.
I can’t say enough about being mortgage free, being mortgage is truly truly truly a life changer. You will be a different person when you become mortgage free. It’s worth doing whatever it takes to get that way. I lived in a tent for a year while I built my cabin. It was so worth it, I would do it again in a heartbeat if I had to start over.
Or do owner financing. If you do owner financing, which is what I did, it’s even easier than dealing with owner directly because you two agree on the amount of the down payment. There’s no bank rules involved when you do owner financing. Which definitely helps you.
If a person has a fixer upper for sale they know it’s harder for a buyer to get a mortgage so it behooves them to work with you.
To make yourself more appealing in an owner financing deal as the buy you can:
Have character witnesses.
Let the seller pull a credit report.
List your job history and family connections.
The 3 things that did the trick for me where character witnesses, a good job, and a little down payment.
Some people like a big $300,000 house, but that’s not me, I like to find the little diamond in the rough and build it into a little homestead. I did it twice. It’s a lifestyle and a journey I really enjoy and you can too.