I have $30 grands sitting on my checking account and i'd like to
invest it, preferably in real estate.
Are there any  properties in this price range?
Any suggestions?

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 03 Aug 2006 16:09 PDT

Where are you located? Where do you want to invest in real estate? Thanks.

---

Clarification of Question by martin33-ga on 03 Aug 2006 16:23 PDT

I'm located in Chicago IL.

---

Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 03 Aug 2006 21:14 PDT

martin...

It's not exactly a direct investment in real estate, but I recently
learned of (and invested with) a company in the business of what's
called 'arbitrage'.

Long story short, they collect a pool of monies from a large number
of investors (like yourself) who don't qualify as "accredited investors".
On their behalf, they do business with a top level real estate mortgage
company who make loans to land developers (protecting themselves by only
loaning up to 60% of the project value). The loans have a 16% interest
rate, which the developers are happy to pay in order to avoid delays
which are inevitable with normal banks. The mortgage company takes 3%.
The arbitrageurs take 2%, and the remaining 11% goes to the investors,
paid monthly for the terms of the contract - one year, in our case.

30K would get you 275 per month.

Additionally, you can get all, or part of (down to the minimum 
investment of 25K) your money back within 30 days, any time within the
year, paying a 2% penalty on the interest (so keeping a 9% return 
instead of 11%).

If you can find such a group in Chicago, with a similar setup, it's
a great investment for 30K. Typically, however, they can be hard to
find, since word-of-mouth far exceeds any benefit they could get by
advertising.

I can ask my company whether they object to publishing their contact
info here, if you're interested, since they correspond with investors
all over the world, but I can't talk with them until tomorrow, and
I also can't guarantee that they'll be interested in the publicity.

Let me know what you think...

sublime1-ga

Hi Martin,

   Some investment decisions are subjective, often have to do with
tolerance of the risk. You 'should' avoid companies which say they do
arbitrage, unless you
are an experienced investor and know A LOT ABOUT that company.

 Main problem with investment into the real-estate is that we are (some say)
 in the last phase of a bubble, worldwide - but particularly in the US.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/01/news/fortune500/buffett_talks/
 (On the other hand - 'they' are saying that for several years by now
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_bubble
 :-)
  
 Second problem is that management of a property takes too much time or money.

  Solution designed  for an 'individual investor' is called REIT. There is
  lot of literature and I suggest that as a search term.
  That is, read some of these articles:

://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=REIT&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

for example:

http://www.investinreits.com/learn/reitstory.cfm

 Your REIT should be listed (on a stock exchange) - and evaluated as
any public company. If you are not experienced investor, consider a
REIT mutual fund

http://www.shrm.org/hrmagazine/articles/0203/0203demby.asp
http://www.suntimes.com/output/savage/cst-fin-terry151.html

 For that you (just) need to understand load/no-load funds
http://forums.kiplinger.com/showthread.php?t=1315&goto=nextnewest
and basic facts such as: 'name' does not mean fund is a member of a family:
http://www.inrealty.com/restocks/mf-fresx.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/fam/fidelity_group.html

If you do not the basics, read some publications of
http://www.aaii.com/

 On the positive side, decision to invest US dollars into something 'real' 
 is a sound one, considering the growing and accelerating defict spending
 of the current US government.

http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=EUR&to=USD&amt=1&t=5y

Do not neglect the tax aspect, see e.g.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=433098

Hedgie

Thank you.

Hi Martin33,

I think you are constrained to a few options if you are wanting to
invest only $30,000 in real estate.  I think your following options
are: 1) Buy foreclosed property
(http://www.ehow.com/how_111013_buy-foreclosed-home.html) 2) Try and
find cheap property at auction
(http://www.ehow.com/how_111001_buy-house-auction.html) 3) find a
partner to invest with (there are several issues with this) and 4) use
the $30,000 as a down payment the traditional way, find renters who
will pay off the mortgage.

Cheers,

You can buy one or two car parking spaces in the Central Business
District for that price range and rent them at a very high return to a
company with offices nearby for their executives.