Buying Real Estate While in College

I liked this line the best:

"The key is to get your parents involved."

Adding debt to debt - not a double negative.

let's all buy condos in florida for $100K and then rent them for $1K per month and make lot-a-money.

i guess the forgot the reality. property taxes/common charges/repairs. oh, those little details.

cooool....awesome

dude...i though flipper was like an old TV show or something, man

The younger you are the better. If the numbers work then go for it!

My sister and brother-in-law did just what this article suggests. When they decided to go to law school in Chicago they figured it was smarter to buy a junior 1 bedroom condo rather than rent for the three years(using all of their wedding gift money on the down payment). Then the market turned,and they had a baby. Not having enough room for the baby, they moved into a rental and rented out their condo. Every check from their renter bounced and they ended up having to pay the guy to move out just to avoid expensive legal proceedings. They were luckily able to sell the condo for a small loss upon graduation, leading to a total loss of about 40-50K.
Looking back, I cannot believe they were given a mortgage! Their only 'income' to pay the mortgage payments was their student loans, but I guess that was OK pre-bubble-burst. They also found the place, bid, and closed all within 12 days! I just closed on my manhattan condo last week, taking a full three months to complete the purchase. Oh how times have changed...

We bought our co-op from a girl whose dad bought it for her while she was in college. He paid $479k for it and we paid $580 for it 4 yrs later, a 5% CAGR. If you assume he used 80% leverage, a 19.7% CAGR. If you get lucky, it could work.

My brother did this in Texas. He got each of his three kids their own house near campus figuring their roommates would pay the mortgage and other expenses. This was profitable enough for him to purchase two more rental properties. Plus he has his own large home, a summer place on the lake, and acres of undeveloped land with mineral rights. He's a land baron now and I'm a little jealous... but proud.

No really, REMom/ChrisT, some ppl actually made money as a result of the greatest re bubble in history... WOW who've thunk it.

I grew up in a midwestern college town, and the parents-buying-for-college-age-children route is very common there. What with the steady supply of renters and lots of new construction around, many wind up keeping the properties and renting them out even after the kid graduates. Most renters aren't horror stories, though you have to be careful of course. Notably, the local market didn't crash there, either.