Can't decide what business to start. Please offer knowlege if you know about....

[CobraJohn01]

1.) Lawn mowing service/snow plowing (industrial mowers but not full blown landscaping)
2.) Power washing/snow plowing business
3.) Pilot car/Escort vehicle service
4.) Tow truck buisiness w/ flatbed truck
5.) Some kind of auto hauling business w/ flatbed truck (not a tractor trailer)

I really can't stand working in an inbound-call center selling insurance anymore. There's no real prospects for me to move up anytime in the near future. At least not to something I'd enjoy any more than this. So I have these different ideas of a business I'd be interested in starting and being my own boss and they shouldn't have any crazy amount of costs to get started.

If any of you either own a business like one of these yourselves, or know someone who does and know a decent amount of what it's like for them and how well they make out after expenses, please chime in and offer up any info you may have. I really can't decide which would be the best option. I live in the Cleveland area so in the winter, I couldn't do power washing or lawn mowing year round, hence the /snowplowing. And the reason I don't want to do a tractor trailer auto hauling service is the start up costs and sheer size of the vehicle I'd have to drive. I'd prefer a 1 or 2-car flatbed for that.

I'll look forward to any info anyone can provide. Thanks in advance! :beer:

 

[ShortShift]

I dont know anything about those types of buisnesses, but my brother managed a moving company. Good money, and pretty simple to run. The boss never worked. He just took care of payroll and my brother ran the whole operation.

 

[CobraJohn01]

I dont know anything about those types of buisnesses, but my brother managed a moving company. Good money, and pretty simple to run. The boss never worked. He just took care of payroll and my brother ran the whole operation.

Interesting. I had actually thought about that but I had a hernia operation a little over a year ago and I'd prefer not to have to have another one. Lol. But I like the whole idea of just taking care of the payroll and everything and just having other people do the actual moving. But to get the business started, whatever it may be, I'll probably be doing it alone other than maybe some help from my girlfriend. I'd just prefer to do it that way to cut down on payroll costs and even if that weren't a concern, I don't really have anyone right now who could help me by working with/for me.

 

[svt2ner]

cutting grass is by far one of the easiest ways to get money... especially the rich folks who are too lazy... $50 a yard for 20 mins of work. you can do a whole neighborhood in a day with a self-propelled mower.

 

[05 Roush]

Haul trash.

By trash I mean haul crap away from people's house as a service. You'll make a fortune. :thumbsup:

 

[FIVELITERS]

Three words.

Personal Real Estate.

Secret way to get wicked rich.

1. get $50,000 specialized property purchase loan.

2. purchase $35,000 nieghborhood eyesore with good structural integrity

3. $15,000 in repairs and landscaping

4. sell for $100,000

5. pay off $50,000 loan

6. enjoy $50,000 profit

7. repeat

:thumbsup:

 

[FordSVTFan]

Then wake up from your dream and realize it isnt that easy or simple!

 

[magnumxl4]

i own a lawnmowing, plowing tree care and minor landscaping buisness, if u wana know anything pm me about it ill be more then willign to tlak to u about it

 

[svt2ner]

Then wake up from your dream and realize it isnt that easy or simple!

+1 it doesnt work that way, you pay taxes on the profit you make anyway. And realestate has come to almost a halt, that actually worked well when you dont need a loan and just used straight up cash before 2002ish.

 

[MonkeysL]

+1 it doesnt work that way, you pay taxes on the profit you make anyway. And realestate has come to almost a halt, that actually worked well when you dont need a loan and just used straight up cash before 2002ish.

maybe where u live but around here its at an all time high right now

 

[2003 Silver]

Three words.

Personal Real Estate.

Secret way to get wicked rich.

1. get $50,000 specialized property purchase loan.

2. purchase $35,000 nieghborhood eyesore with good structural integrity

3. $15,000 in repairs and landscaping

4. sell for $100,000

5. pay off $50,000 loan

6. enjoy $50,000 profit

7. repeat

:thumbsup:

Ya ever hear of capital gains tax.....?? :rollseyes

 

[MonkeysL]

Three words.
Personal Real Estate.
Secret way to get wicked rich.
1. get $50,000 specialized property purchase loan.
2. purchase $35,000 nieghborhood eyesore with good structural integrity
3. $15,000 in repairs and landscaping
4. sell for $100,000
5. pay off $50,000 loan
6. enjoy $50,000 profit
7. repeat
:thumbsup:

depending what part of the country u live in

*taxes-atleast 1000-1500 (atleast around here on a home like this)
*loan-500 to 600 inspection/appraiser fee, closing cost, title search, blah blah, JUST for the loan, will end up being around 1000
*realtor fee-6000 (on a 100000home)
*monthly until you sell it-couple hundred

it sounds really simple but when you get down to it there is alot more than you think. getting the loan and paying all the bank fee's isn't cheap. one way to bypass that is to get a short term interest only consumer loan. realtor fees kill you unless u can sell it by owner.

 

[MonkeysL]

double post

 

[FordSVTFan]

Ya ever hear of capital gains tax.....?? :rollseyes

If you really want to bust it out, lets do it completely.

First off where do you find this miracle property that is going to be worth $100K with only $15K in materials, labor and landscaping? So that means you are buying an $85K property for $35K. $50K undervalued :whine: Not happening.

If it did, you would have to qualify for either an unowner occupied mortgage or a personal loan. I have been involved in Real Estate for numerous years and never heard of a

specialized property purchase loan

!!!

You would be required to pay origination fees, appraisal fees, application fees, title fees, title insurance and other closing costs. Easily $4000.

Then you have carrying costs, each month you are in possession. This will be higher than an owner occupied house. So figure you are out of pocket $500 a month on that. So $3000 over 6 months.

You will need insurance will it is in your possession although unoccupied, so add another $300 for 4-6 months.

Since it is an eyesore and needs work, you will also need permits and inspections. As well as the costs for that.

Then you will have closing costs and sales costs. You will lose $6K to real estate commissions. Then closing costs of about $2500.

Figure about $11K in expenses without any cost over runs or unexpected expenses with the rehab (quite likely with a cheap eyesore property).

Now you have conservatively $61K into your investment. If you can sell it for $100K, you have a profit of $39K minus short term capital gains of $12,500. Leaving an actual profit of $26,500.

That is assuming you can find this miracle property that is so undervalued and will only require $15K to make into a property worth 3X what you paid for it.

Then you just need to repeat this good fortune a few times a year without any changes in the market.

wicked easy :rockon:

 

[Jad G]

Listen to this man. He speaks from experience. My family does the same thing, real estate investment. It's not nearly as easy as it sounds.

 

[YesterdayAgain]

Well, after reading this thread, the best advice I can give you is don't take ANY sort of financial advice from poor people.

 

[FIVELITERS]

If you really want to bust it out, lets do it completely.

First off where do you find this miracle property that is going to be worth $100K with only $15K in materials, labor and landscaping? So that means you are buying an $85K property for $35K. $50K undervalued :whine: Not happening.


If it did, you would have to qualify for either an unowner occupied mortgage or a personal loan. I have been involved in Real Estate for numerous years and never heard of a !!!

You would be required to pay origination fees, appraisal fees, application fees, title fees, title insurance and other closing costs. Easily $4000.

Then you have carrying costs, each month you are in possession. This will be higher than an owner occupied house. So figure you are out of pocket $500 a month on that. So $3000 over 6 months.

You will need insurance will it is in your possession although unoccupied, so add another $300 for 4-6 months.

Since it is an eyesore and needs work, you will also need permits and inspections. As well as the costs for that.

Then you will have closing costs and sales costs. You will lose $6K to real estate commissions. Then closing costs of about $2500.

Figure about $11K in expenses without any cost over runs or unexpected expenses with the rehab (quite likely with a cheap eyesore property).

Now you have conservatively $61K into your investment. If you can sell it for $100K, you have a profit of $39K minus short term capital gains of $12,500. Leaving an actual profit of $26,500.

That is assuming you can find this miracle property that is so undervalued and will only require $15K to make into a property worth 3X what you paid for it.

Then you just need to repeat this good fortune a few times a year without any changes in the market.

wicked easy :rockon:

you're knowledgeable on real estate investment yaaay. :bored:

Thanks for scaring the shit out of the guy IF he was even considering real estate. :thumbsup:

The "specialized property purchase loan" i was referring to you probably havent heard of because it's the secret code language term for us red ops spys. (secret code language and red ops wtfwhoamg :uh oh: ... ... )

... :shrug:

just feckin around.

:bored:

anyways, what i meant by that quickly concocted and creative term that i just threw out there real quick because i thought i was just making a quick little cute post to inspire this guy, since he asked, to maybe look further into personal real estate investment, but instead had a couple of pesky knowitalls try and make somebody look like a fool that doesnt know what he's talking about and now have to not needingly cover my digital ass /rant was:

a personal loan from a private party business partner (another secret code language term for a decently wealthy relative/friend that you know personally or professionally :uh oh: )

"but FIVELITERS thats all by chance and circumstance, youre an idiot, noones gonna lend you money ever like that, youre wrong, why would anyone give you or anybody else like this a large amount of money?"

the loan is attractive to the business partner because they dont do shit but lend you money and get some profit for it, all they know and probably care about is you're dealing with real estate and making them a % profit = happy business partner.

"Oh ok a private business partner...instead of a bank...crap i didnt think of that"

too bad. /bankloanfeescostsfeckyou

you get the loan, you do your thing, you pay him/her back in a relatively short period of time and even ask for more money en route during the process if unexpected costs are discovered while making a promise for a higher profit than previously discussed ("more money spent = higher profit for you" routine, never heard of it? dont know what i mean? too bad, ask someone else how to financialy negotiate) that you ultimately make good on = happy investor = lets do it again sir.

You guys ever heard of capitalization?

No i dont mean capitalizing the little letters on your keyboard.

Cant/dont know how to find those "miracle" properties? Well you obviously dont know how to and arent looking correctly and in the right places.

Real Estate firms? ... :lol:

Originally Posted by FordSVTFan
Then wake up from your dream and realize it isnt that easy or simple!

Wake up for my dream? Hold on a sec please.

*reads over my previous post*

ok sorry i was just trying to find where in my pervious post i stated that real estate investment is easy or simple.

Hold on i'll look again maybe i'm wrong.

*please hold*

Yeah couldnt find it. Are you reading the same post? Maybe not who knows. :shrug:

Originaly posted by 1268Melberger
Ya ever heard of capital gains tax.....?? :rollseyes

Yes. Whats your point? :burn:

i've got aspriations of my own, i've worked myself up from being a greenhorned minimum wage worker helping with the renovations to being the personal assistant to man who taught me all this mumbo jumbo, to now considering/working on getting a "specialized property purchasing loan" of my own, and start shit rolling. I plan on and am very determined to be the kind of guy giving MY boss multi million dollar loans and yielding a big profit from it. I'm only 21 check that out. :-D

now, obviously its alot more detailed than even i went into it and FordSVTFan did, but i'm not gonna write a multi-volumed book on it.

Long story short, which i guess i should have posted before instead of my cute little list there which was intended like i said to just maybe inspire the guy to look a little further into real estate investment, is this:


Hey dude, if you want you should really look into real estate. It can be really lucrative if you do it correctly.



*leaves in search of advil for carpal tunnel cramps*

 

[05 Roush]

Real estate requires good knowledge of the laws and guidelines of the state and local scenes.

But if you do decide to go into it, become involved in purchasing and flipping bankruptcy homes, or buying property tax lien certificates.

If they pay you back they have to pay interest. And if they don't pay you back after a period of time, you own the property. Lottery time!!! :banana:

 

[04SCRMINYLWVERT]

:beer: :beer: Don't go into Real Estate right now, it's on a down turn. That depends on where you live. Tech investment is where you want to be, invest in Microsoft. Now that they can run XP on a MAC machine it really makes you think. MIC. Will rule the world shortly. It's not because it's better, but just because it will be universal. :beer:

 

[CobraJohn01]

Three words.

Personal Real Estate.

Secret way to get wicked rich.

I'm sure there are ways to make tons of money in real estate, but I don't have the money to take out a loan for investment property. It would have to be something that would take at the most, probably $10,000 or so. I could buy an used flatbed for that much or mowing equipment for that much. And I'm just not that interested in that kind of complexity at this point. The farthest I'd go right now with any kind of real estate venture would be to sell our little bungalow in the next year or so and try to find a nice duplex home and live in one half while renting out the other. Then, after a nice amount of equity would be built up, I'd move out of the one half, buy a new home for us, and keep renting out both halves of the duplex.

Two of my other ideas of businesses are opening a doggy day-care (there's one near me and it has to make a killing!) and the other one was opening my own independent insurance agency since I'm already a licenesed insurance agent. But those would both involve a lot more money and processes to get started up.