What is happening in the Real Estate Market and will it recover? - (W7:D5) Debt Free Millionaire

Simplified Explanation: Like buying a personal home, you will find opportunities to buy houses at a low price and this will provide a way for you to buy, fix and either sell or rent it to someone needing housing. If you find a house low enough and can sell it for a large profit, it frees money to buy another, larger house at equal value to the price you sold the first house and each time you can make a bigger profit from the sale.

Real Life: To buy the house you can take out additional debt or you can pay it off in cash. Know that if you pay it off in cash and you bought it for a low enough amount, you will almost always make more money not having to pay a mortgage and so interest on the mortgage. Also know that you will not have to pay the extra fees that come along with a mortgage or the down payment. To buy it with a mortgage you will need to take out the down payment from your savings, adding the mortgage to your monthly expenses (personal, if you are living in it or business if you are renting it out). The price of the house does not add to your other debt payments, in other words, it is the last debt you pay normally because it has the lowest interest rate, and it is the most acceptable type of debt. Continue to pay the mortgage until you can 1) have excess earnings that you can put towards paying down your debt, 2) pay off the house completely, or 3) sell the house. 

NOTE: You almost always lose money on the house itself, when you have a mortgage and purchased a house at market value; that is, unless the housing market explodes like it did in 2019-2021. 

Like in real life, in the game there are four options you can take when drawing a Real Estate card. Each has its advantages and disadvantage.

• Personal – First off, you need the money for the down payment available in your savings to buy the house. If you are buying the house to live in, decrease your savings by the lost expense of repairs because you are going to make it a little better looking than if you were to rent it out. Then decrease your existing living expenses by $12,000 ($1,000 a month rent) and increase it by your mortgage payment. Now live your life as if you live in this house. You are also able to sell it and move into another house if you would like.
• Business – If you are buying this house to fix up, and sell or rent, you will need to pay for all the repairs. Repair costs are on the card, under Business #1: You must have cash for these repairs, you cannot take a loan out. In the game, it doesn’t matter if you are renting the house or selling it, you have to wait until another card is drawn that says that someone is looking for a house like yours at a certain price. At that point you can sell it if you want. Until you sell it though, you may want to rent it out and make some money off the deal. Add the rent to your business income.
• Sell One – Whether it is being rented out as a business or you are using it for your personal residence, you can sell one of your houses when someone is looking for a house your size. If you are selling a business owned house increase your business revenue by the amount of the sale (price you sold the house, minus the down payment, minus the price you originally bought the house). If it is your personal residence, add the sale of the home to the amount raised by selling it (price you sold the house, minus the down payment, minus the price you originally bought the house). This is the amount you made by selling the house. Then, if you don’t have another house to move into, increase your monthly expenses by $1,000 for a rental, and decrease the money you were paying for the mortgage, if you had one. The game will do this automatically for you but explain it to you also.
• Wholesale the house – If you receive a card (know of a buyer and you don’t have a money to buy/sell it), you can always refer them to an opponent and make some extra money off the sale of a house they are looking for. In other words, you become the middleman. If you find a house that is perfect, but you don’t have the money, you may sell that to an opponent as well for the price listed on the wholesale section of the card. Down below, we will share how to do this.

There are many options while playing the game on how to profit from a real estate card that you or your opponent pulls, much like in life, you may find an opportunity yourself or through a friend and there are ways of making money off that information. So, keep you ears open.