its easy to lose money if you're buying at retail and then selling at retail... there is really no money to be made in that scenario. I buy and remodel and eith

its easy to lose money if you're buying at retail and then selling at retail... there is really no money to be made in that scenario. I buy and remodel and either sell or rent the houses I aquire, but I do this at drastically reduced rates below retail. IMHO its the only way to buy. Every property I invest in has a problem, which is why the price is so low, alot of times its 10x below retail because of this. The top reasons why a house might have a problem is 1) the owners died and taxes were never paid, 2) the bank (or an individual) foreclosed on it reducing the price, 3) there are leins from the county or federal government that are making the house not sellable or worth nothing as a result, 4) the house has permit or code enforcement issues that the owner cannot resolve on their own ... Anyway, the best way to buy property is this way, and one rule I learned from attending auctions in person along time ago (its mostly online now) was that once the bidding goes above a third of its retail value, I'm out... Because sometimes you may have to invest 10-40k to make a house back to normal, and so paying even half its retail value just makes no sense.