A First Look

My friend Jim suggested a property he had seen it while out on a neighborhood walk.  It was a mobile home on two lots across the street from the lake.  He'd done some flips before so we made arrangements for me to drive out and see it.  We met up with Marty the Realtor, the listing agent.  

Upon finding out what my suggested investment strategy was, he promptly panned the place as pretty much worthless as an investment.  He advised that mobile homes were not the path to take, that they had no resale value and the laws were changing thus making financing almost impossible for new buyers of mobiles.  Gee, I never got past the front yard on that one!  Nothing like a little reality to kill a good fantasy! 

Oh well, moving on….. but this time I started looking at real houses on real foundations.  Marty the Realtor suggested a place he knew of with three small houses where I could make an excellent return on my investment dollar buying and then renting two of the houses out.  It didn't quite sound kosher to cynical me so I wasn't biting on something so lucrative that the current owner couldn't wait to get rid of it.  

On my own I conducted drive-bys in a variety of places and neighborhoods.  Now there was an experience!  You sure had to go through some pretty scary tracts of housing to get to the more appealing homes near or on the water’s edge.  Seems the farther from the water, the less desirable the houses.  Jim and I looked drove through areas he was familiar with and some areas at the south end of the lake.  Nothing really stood out.

The Search.....

I started scouring internet listings and driving out to the lake to scout out areas that appealed to me.  I wanted something that wasn’t too far removed from the population center, Gun Barrel City (GBC).  With advice and encouragement from my friends and my own gut instinct, I started looking on the east side of the lake, the area closest to GBC.  There were interesting places on the west side of the lake too but I didn’t want to drive that far to get to the entertainment venues GBC and nearby Mabank had to offer.