How to Make Money Fast

Small town, big town, it doesn’t matter, if you have a small area in your backyard that you can use for planting, then you can make money growing small plants at home. Actually you can make pretty good money on 1/40 of one acre. That’s an area about 30 feet by 40 feet.

You will be amazed at how many plants you can fit in an area that small, and at how much money you can make. Even apartment dwellers can do this! If you live in an apartment, just to get a feel for how fun and rewarding a tiny nursery can be, find somebody with a little piece of ground that they will either let you use, let you rent it, or do a joint venture with you.

Is there really a market for small plants? The market is huge, something like 4 billion dollars last year alone, and the demand is tremendous. As a small grower, you have a tremendous advantage over the larger nurseries, their overhead is very high. As a backyard grower, yours will be almost nothing.

You might be asking; “I live in a small town in a rural area, how many plants can I really sell?”

Tens of thousands if you want to. Most people don’t realize it, but large wholesale growers are the largest buyers of small plants in the country. They sell so many plants that they just can not produce them fast enough themselves, so they buy them from wherever they can find them. Just pack them up in a cardboard box and ship them anywhere you want.

I routinely buy large quantities of small plants and have them shipped thousands of miles to my house. Why do I buy plants if I know how to grow them myself? There are a lot of reasons, but one is because I am impatient and don’t like to grow Japanese Maples from seed. I can buy Japanese Maple seedlings for as little as 75 cents and all I have to do is pot them up and watch them grow.

I also buy large quantities of flowering shrubs that I would like to start propagating myself. I buy them for 50 cents, pot them up, and often sell them the next year for $4.97. But in the meantime I take cuttings from them to propagate for next year’s crop. Then I never have to buy that variety again.

Those are the same reasons that many wholesale nurseries are always looking for great deals on small plants. When they find someone like you, growing in their backyard, they are delighted because they know they can buy what they need for less money from a small backyard grower than they can if they buy from a large nursery.

It only stands to reason, your overhead is almost nothing, you don’t have to raise the price of your plants to pay for buildings, hundreds of acres of land, trucks, tractors, and dozens of employees.

How much money do you need to get started?

Almost none. All you have to do is root some cuttings, and you’re on your way! There are dozens of easy plant propagation techniques that are so easy to learn that young children can do them, and with great success I might add.

This propagation information is available to you free of charge at http://www.freeplants.com

The size of the area you need to get started is really up to you, but an area about the size of a picnic table is a start. I’m serious. I root my cuttings in flats that are about 12″ by 15″, and can get between 100 and 150 cuttings per flat. In an area about the size of a picnic table you should be able to root several thousand cuttings at a time.

And guess what? As soon as they are well rooted, they have a value and can be sold immediately! Isn’t that cool? Typically a rooted cutting is worth about 50 cents. Let’s see now, 1500 cuttings at 50 cents each, that’s $750.!!! Wow!!! The wheels should be turning now.

But you don’t have to sell 50 cent plants. You can grow them until they’re bigger and get more money for them. That’s what I do, I pot them up in small pots and they sell like crazy right from my driveway at $4.97 each.

This spring we sold over $25,000 worth of $4.97 plants right from our driveway. One of the people that bought my Backyard Nursery E-book held a sale this spring and sold $2,800 worth of plants her first weekend. She was ecstatic! Of course we also sold plants for much more than that. I used to grow Japanese Red Maples and we sold those for $45 each, and they sold like hot cakes!

This is one of the most fun and rewarding home businesses you could ever get involved in. My kids have learned work ethics, the value of a dollar, and skills that will last them a lifetime. Any time they needed a little extra money all they had to do was step out the back door and earn the money they needed.

It costs very little to get started, and the rewards can be quite high. It’s certainly not a get rich quick plan (because there is no such thing!), but plenty of people have done very well in the nursery business. All it takes is determination and hard work. You can learn it as you go along. It’s much easier than you think.

You are welcome to use this article on your website or in your newsletter as long as you reprint it as is, including the contact information at the end. Website URLs must be active links. You are welcome to use this article with an affiliate link, http://www.freeplants.com/resellers.htm

Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Visit his most interesting website, http://www.freeplants.com and sign up for his excellent gardening newsletter. Article provided by http://gardening-articles.com

Author: Michael McGroarty
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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I get this question often. Understand I have been investing full time in real estate for more than a decade. I’ve seen up markets and down markets. And, the question is consistent, “Can you make money in this market?”

The answer is always, yes. In today’s market there is loads of inventory. There are however a limited number of loan programs, and the ones that are available have stricter guidelines and qualifications. BUT people are still buying.

How Do You Profit?

There are plenty of strategies (or recipes as I call them) to win. One that you can use is “buying, fixing, and re-selling”. Remember this is but one-way to win. The first thing to realize about real estate is there is always a current value. Unless we are speculating, the current value is the value. NOT what the home was worth last year, or what it might be worth next year.

If you are buying at a discount on the current value then you have potential to win, period. It’s like gas prices; we remember what it once cost. But the reality is we buy gas at today’s price. You must treat real estate investment the same way. What is this house worth today?

Using a local agent to establish value – and even an appraiser – will help you understand the values in your investment market, the average time on market, and the median house price.

• AVERAGE TIME ON MARKET will tell you how long it takes to sell a house in your market, and even better, for the neighborhood of the house you are buying.
• MEDIAN HOUSE PRICE tells you what the average price is for a house in your area. You want to know this number because if you buy a house lower than or near this median you will have a higher number of potential buyers.

In other words, take the statistics of wealth in general; there are many more people with ordinary jobs than there are rich and carefree. You want to follow this statistic. Don’t worry we aren’t going to get crazy about analytics here, just know we want average houses, not mansions.

Okay so where are we? You are buying average houses, under the current market value. What’s next? Here is your punch list:

• MONEY – How will you pay for this house?
• FIX IT – Who will be doing the rehab work?
• SELLING – Who will sell it?
• DISCOUNT – How much under value?

Notice I didn’t number this list. That was intentional. All the factors here tell you what you can pay for a house…

DISCOUNT – How Much Under Value?

On average we are paying no more than 75 cents for a house. What that means is if the house will sell for $100,000 we will pay no more than $75,000 AND that number must include any repairs. If the house requires $15,000 in work then we can pay no more than $60,000 for the purchase.

Understand, we have been doing this for many years. As a rookie you can quickly eat away a 25% profit. Let’s look at an example transaction:

You pay 60 cents for a house, where you budget $15k to fix it. You will have an additional 6% or ($6,000) in agents fees, another 2% in closing costs, and this does not include any holding costs; utilities, cost of money, etc.

Here it is more clearly (same end value of $100,000):

- 60% buy
- 15% in repairs
- 6% in commissions
- 2% holding costs
- 83% total
- 17% potential profit

MONEY – How Will You Pay for This House?

There are many ways to pay. You can get a bank loan on the property, but, in many cases rehabs need more work and the lending guidelines will not allow for rundown houses. You can get a loan on your current house, if you have equity. You can borrow private/hard money. And, you can likely do a combination of several. Lastly, you can use your own cash or partner with someone with cash.

Regardless, there is a cost of money. That cost is the interest rate and any loan fees, plus time. For example, a private lender will charge points – one point, equals 1%. On a loan for $75,000 one point is $750 or for a two point loan – $1500. In most cases this will be added to your loan. Meaning you will pay it when you sell the house.

The common lingo for investors and private money is “two and twelve” which means that the loan costs 2 points and 12% interest. Note: you may pay more, even six and eighteen. Shop around. Assuming you paid 2 and 12 your points are $1500 and you monthly interest is $765 monthly.

If you hold a house for a number of months time is ticking dollars:

- month 1 – $765
- month 2 – $1,530
- month 3 – $2,295
- month 4 – $3,060
- month 5 – $3,825

Which means that over five months you will pay $3,825 plus $1500 (the points) for a total cost of money of $5,325. IF you held your house for 8 months you’d spend $6,120 plus $1500 ($7,620).

Remember you had 17% potential profit ($17,000). The other variable here is unforeseen costs of repair. I just bought a house that had an overage of $2000 for roof repairs – hidden under snow. Which brings us back around to your repair work.

FIX IT – Who Will Be Doing the Rehab Work?

People come and go. Over the years I’ve had several dream teams. Your contractor is a part of your team, as is your agent, and any other person you find yourself working with again and again. Once you have all the players your job will get easier. Our focus now is on your contractor.

All you have to do is turn on the TV for a primer on how to flip houses. And you see all the clichs; yelling at contractors, contractors who don’t do good work, and contractor who charge too much, etc. There are however, a select few who get it.

You want someone fixing your houses that wants to grow with you – I assume you plan on buying more than one investment. You want a team player that not only understands how to fix houses, has a team attitude, and enough of a foundation he can eat some of his mistakes. Why? Because no matter how hard you BOTH try there will be houses like mine with a $2000 roof overage. I made the contractor share the cost. It was an item he over looked.

Your contractor is also there to look at houses before you buy, give you a cost for repair, then to DO the repairs quickly and have the home shining for you tell sell it – in the shortest time possible, tick-tock.

SELLING – Who Will Sell It?

Choosing an agent to work with is much like finding a contractor. There are people that specialize. You want an agent that works with investors when you are buying. But, you also want an agent capable of selling your house when it’s ready to go back on the market!

RECAP

• MONEY, how will you pay for this house? – You can use private/hard money lenders, bank loans, or cash. Yours or a partners.
• FIX IT, who will be doing the rehab work? – Find your team. Shop around. Ask for referrals, there ARE good contractors with great prices.
• SELLING, who will sell it? – The agent that helps you buy can also help you sell. Again, shop for an agent who works with investors.
• DISCOUNT, how much under value? – Your discount may change based on your cost of money. I would never pay more than 75 cents with repairs.

In closing, this article was not meant to give you every answer about buying real estate for profit, but rather a glimpse at how you can win today. Again this is but one recipe for buying and selling houses. You must find the one that works for you. “Can you make money in this market?” You bet!

About the Author: Robert Wayne is a philanthropist, investor, urban mystic and educator. He has spent the last decade investing in real estate and teaching financial literacy. Robert’s musings can be found at his digital highrise on the web http://DigitalHighrise.net.

Author: Robert D Wayne
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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