Utah Real Estate Purchase Contract: Fill & Download for Free

If I had $100,000 and wanted to start investing in real estate, what would be my preferred method. (Something that does not require a 40-hour weekly commitment.)I’d invest the first $10,000 and 6 months in education. Specifically, I’d join all the REIA (real estate investment associations) in my area, and I’d attend all their meetings, (Cost to join: $100-$200 each.) You’ll find that there are about 3 levels of education that are sold to you as part of the meetings:One-day, generally weekend programs for $49-$99. You’ll get a lot of information from these, although these will also sell more expensive programs.One- or two-day programs with some training material for $99-$299. Again, you’ll get a lot of information from these, although many will also sell more expensive programs.Three- to four-day “boot camps” that may or may not be in your geographic area. These usually come with training materials and often some after-program support. These can run $1,500-$2,500. Once you have an idea of what area of real estate you’re most interested in, these are usually worthwhile. Boot camps can also come bundled with some bigger package that supposedly is worth $10,000-$25,000.W A R N I N G: Never, ever sign up for a $15,000-$30,000 program. They’re out there. Usually, they’re sold in a “free introductory session” with some big name TV rehabber attached to it. The free sessions are in nearby hotels, often with a freebie like an MP3 player or a CD with real estate advice on it. The actual programs, though, are somewhere else in the country: Usually Utah or Nevada. I’ve “worked with” some of the graduates of these programs, and they’ve picked up very little useful information. Please, please save your money.So, it’s 6 months later. You’ve joined the REIAs in your area. You’ve attended a weekend program nearly every week. You may have attended a boot camp or two in subject areas that interest you. And you’ve done all the mandatory investor things. You’ve set up an LLC. You’ve got a bank account and a self-directed IRA. You’ve got business cards and an answering service.Maybe you’ve even decided to become a licensed real estate agent. (That’s a hotly debated topic among investors—whether or not to become an agent. I did and think it makes a lot of sense. But there are some very successful investors who aren’t agents. Neither choice is wrong.) If you become a Realtor (that means membership in the National Association of Realtors, plus your state and local associations), your total cost (prelicensing education, testing costs, NAR membership, membership in your local MLS, etc.) will cost roughly $2,000-$2,500. My suggestion: Do the licensing process quickly. You can become a licensed agent in 2 months or less.Now what?Hopefully, at this point, you’ve decided how you’re going to invest the remaining $90,000. You’ve decided where to start. Among the possibilities:Wholesaling: You prospect for houses, generally not on your MLS. You put them under contract. Then you assign (sell) the contract for a profit—which might be anywhere from $5,000-$25,000 or more per deal. I know some wholesalers who average $25,000 per deal. Again: You’re not buying the property. You’re putting it under contract, then selling the contract. This is an inexpensive way to get into the business, and pretty much risk-free.Rehabbing: This is pretty much the other extreme. Here, you are buying the property, rehabbing it, and selling it. It’s riskier than wholesaling. Done wrong, you can lose tens of thousands of dollars on one transaction. On the other hand, it should be far more profitable than wholesaling when done properly. But while a wholesaling deal might take 20–40 days from beginning to end, most rehabs will take 3–6 months or more. Tip: You’ll borrow a lot of the money needed to purchase and rehab the house from either hard money lenders or private lenders. You don’t need to find some property that’ll take just your remaining $90,000 to rehab! Tip: Start with wholesaling to find out what sorts of properties sell best in your area.Buy-and-Hold: In this scenario, you buy one or more properties. You then rent them out and make money on the positive cash flow and, long term, on any appreciation. While this is a good general strategy, I wouldn’t advise it at the beginning. It can be a struggle in many areas to find properties that’ll cash flow. And your money generally won’t stretch too far, especially if you are aiming for a reasonable cash flow. This can be more hands-off than other forms of investing, but the returns can be lower, too. Take your $90,000. Suppose you’re able to leverage it to buy two properties that, after all expenses, management fees, etc., produce a $9,000 annual positive cash flow. Many new buy-and-hold investors would love that. That’d be spectacular. And yet . . . that works out to $750 a month. Not terrible. But far less than you could do using other investing methods. And that’s close to a best-case scenario. Would you be happy with $300-$400 a month on your $90,000 investment? That’d be far more typical.Rehab Mobile/Manufactured Homes: This is similar to rehabbing houses, but with a couple of twists that make this technique (also sometimes called “Lonnie Deals” after the person who refined the technique) incredibly profitable. Basically, you buy a mobile or manufactured home for cash, making sure that you’re buying it well below market. (Sellers of mobile/manufactured homes often are far more flexible on price than sellers of “stick built” homes.) You rehab the home, then sell it for much more using owner financing. Example: Similar mobile homes in a park are selling for $30,000. You buy one, all cash, for $12,000. You spend $2,000 on minor rehabs. You now put it on the market: $36,000 with $6,000 down. Payments of $449 a month for 9 years. That’s an interest rate of about 12% on the $30,000. But . . . while 12% might be a decent interest rate, you’re getting far more. You’ve paid a total of $14,000 ($12,000 for the home and $2,000 for the repairs). You’ve received a down payment of $6,000. So your net investment is $8,000 ($14,000-$6,000). And you’re going to be receiving $449 a month for the next 9 years on your $8,000 investment. That’s a return of 67% a year. And those are fairly conservative numbers; I’ve seen them well over 100%.Mobile Home Parks: Buy an entire park. If you stick to just the real estate, there’s nothing to maintain. You’re just renting out small chunks of land for $300-$600 a month. If you want to boost your income, own some mobile homes, too. This strategy will take some management time, unless you find someone dependable on site to manage the park (typically in return for free housing). Most will also take more than your $90,000. So you buy with owner financing.Storage Facilities: These have become popular in the past few years. It’ll take more money than you’ll have, but consider partnering up with someone. These have a lot of the advantages to buy-and-hold real estate, but with much better returns and without the hassles of live tenants.AirBnB: This has become very popular recently. Due to condo bylaws and HOA restrictions, there are a lot of places you can’t rent out a room, or a house, using the AirBnB strategy. This wouldn’t be my first choice, but I’ve heard that a lot of people are making good money doing this. U.S. investors are also investing overseas, using local management companies to handle the details.Note Buying: You can buy either performing or non-performing real estate notes. I’m not into this myself, but I know some people who are doing very good with it. This is largely a numbers exercise . . . finding opportunities and capitalizing on them.REITs: Real estate investment trusts. I had to include this here since a couple of people have suggested it, and it always comes up in online discussion of real estate investments. (Note: REITs almost never come up in conversations among real investors. Why? Because REITs aren’t real estate investments.) REITs are no more real estate investments than a mutual fund that invests in auto manufacturers is like investing in autos, or a fund that invests in consumer services is like buying a McDonald’s franchise. REITs are a form of investing in the stock market, not in real estate. If you’re interested in investing in real estate, forget REITs.Bottom LineSo what would my preferred method be? After following the process described above and trying a number of different things, I’ve become largely focused on wholesaling. Your decision might be very different, and that’s fine. You have to take into consideration your risk tolerance, your available time, the things that interest you (and the things that don’t), and much more.But I would strongly, strongly recommend beginning the process the way I described. Invest $10,000 in yourself first. Then decide how to invest the rest.

The treasurer of your county keeps documents on public record identifying the owner of every piece of property in the county.The person who is documented as the owner is completely responsible for property taxes. If the property changes hands during the year, each owner of record, pays their share of that year’s property taxes.If a flipper buys a property at a reduced price and resells that property for a higher price, the flipper is obligated to pay the Federal Government (IRS) capital gains tax on the increase.In Utah, the laws are very strict. Many flippers have no real estate license, no training on legal issues, nor do they have any ethics training.Real estate agents may not practice law without a license but are allowed to fill the blanks on a real estate purchase contract.Agents must take continuing education as part of their licensing which includes Ethics.

NO.And what you signed, if it can expire like that, is not a “purchase contract”, it’s an options agreement.Further, since you are the seller, and not the buyer, it would have been a “sales agreement”, not a “purchase contract”.And the “option to buy” contract is, in more general terms, called a “put option”.Typically, you get paid for this option — for a property, this is most commonly in the form of a “lease with an option to buy” agreement, and because of that lease, there has been an “exchange of consideration”.In other words, if they have been paying on the lease in good faith, you are legally bound to not withdraw the “option to buy”, or that’s what’s called “a fundamental breach of contract”, or “a breach of good faith”.This would entitle them to a refund on everything they’ve paid on the lease, if it were “a lease with option to buy” agreement.I suggest you consult a real estate attorney in your area, because different areas will have slightly or profoundly different lawsNote: No one is going to give you specific legal advice online; not only would it risk their bar card, if you lived in an area where they were not licensed to practice — for example, if the attorney were only a member of the bar in Utah, and you lived in Florida —it’s against Quora’s TOS, and Quora can and will throw you off their platform.