If you want to make money in real estate, there are two ideas to be disentangled from: that you need to own a real estate investment property, and that you need a lot of money to make a real estate profit. Both ideas are myths that will get in the way of your success in the highly lucrative real estate market; If you find the right deal, you can make a killing. Here’s why these ideas are false:

Real estate investors trade contracts, not property. In other words, they find a property that interests them, sign an option contract with the owner to buy it, and then turn around and sell it to retailers. This transaction is called a ‘contract assignment’ and the only money you will normally need to pay is a small amount of deposit. This brings us to the second point, which is:

You can make zero initial investment or invest in the one you only have a small amount of money, if you get the deal right. For example, you obtain a lease option with a home seller, in exchange for a monthly option fee. The lease option entitles you to purchase the property at some future time under the terms defined in the option agreement. When you find a buyer for your option contract, you pay the seller the option fee. Keep in mind that you have never actually owned the real estate investment property, although the option contract effectively gives you control over it. Once the buyer exercises his option, the seller gets the money from his property plus his mortgage payments have been paid for a few months while he has made a profit on the sale.

Another popular zero-down technique used to purchase property is called ‘subject to’ as in ‘subject to existing financing’. Under this agreement, the seller gives you the deed to your property, in exchange for which you pay your existing mortgage. Using this technique is essential if you are acquiring property from a financially distressed owner, as his financial problems may cause him to lose control of the property. If you have the deed, this could not happen.

However, even when you practice zero initial investment, you should still have some cash in reserve as a contingency fund in case the deal goes bad. For example, the option buyer may back out at the last minute; in this case, you’ll need cash to continue paying the homeowner the monthly option fee until he can find a new buyer.

The point of all this is that anyone can be successful at investing in real estate investment property if they are willing to educate themselves and work at it. You don’t even need good credit since, as demonstrated above, there are many creative financing techniques you can use to purchase real estate. And real estate is one of the safest investments. You don’t even need to know everything; Once you know the basics, you can go out and start making money. After all, learning is a continuous process.