Do you have an investment property? Maybe you had a little extra money at one point and a friend recommended you buy a house and rent it out. Well, you need to fire that friend; not really, but read on…

An investment property is just that, an investment, so why buy a rental property that’s going to net you negative cash flow every month? “Well, the monthly rent is helping pay the mortgage and in 30 years I’ll own the house free and clear. Then when I retire I’ll be able to sell it and make a large profit.”

Why not find a multi-unit property, or apartment building, or a house in a college town that six college students are going to rent and get positive monthly cash flow, a free house, and (this is where it gets good) the ability to buy as many of these properties as you want?

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Everyone’s heard the adage that if you want to be successful, surround yourself with successful people. Well, I don’t know about you, but there aren’t that many people out there who are as successful as I want to be. There just aren’t that many Bill Gates’ or Donald Trumps’ out there. Luckily, reading books about success is the next best thing to being surrounding by billionaires. So, here’s a list of books that I’ve used to feed my mind.

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This is the third installment of the Mortgage Shopping series. In the first installment, I went over how Rate Shopping can Hurt Your FICO Score. In installment two I reminded you of a forgotten concept in mortgages: You Get What You Pay For. I left a major question unanswered, “If I shouldn’t be shopping, then how to I find the best deal on a mortgage?”

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In the last installment, Rate Shopping – The Story of the Too Low FICO, we went over how rate shopping can hurt your FICO score. We went over the one way to shop for a mortgage and still save that FICO score of yours from dropping like a rock. Now we’re going to talk about a simple concept that my grandma taught me, and I’m sure she’d like me to pass it on. What is it? You get what you pay for.

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It’s true, rate shopping can hurt your credit score. “But why should I be penalized for being a sophisticated investor trying to find the best deal?” Well, the short answer is you won’t be; the long answer is you will. Ok, that wasn’t so long, but keep reading.

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A basic tennet of capitalism is that competition is good for the economy. It helps prevent price gouging and ultimately leads to a better product for the consumer. Well, that sounds great and all, but that doesn’t always hold true; especially with mortgages.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of competition. What ends up hurting people is too much competition. What can a sophisticated investor such as yourself do to prevent being raked over the coals in spite of the fact that you’re shopping for the best rate on a mortgage? Well, I’m not going to tell you…alright, fine, I will….but it’s going to be broken up into several parts over the next couple days. Sorry, you can’t have it all at once…that would just be too easy.

I’ll cover how your FICO score can be negatively affected as well as the possibility of rate shopping so hard you weed out the best mortgage brokers. So, what can you do if you shouldn’t be shopping so hard? Well, I’ll also cover the end of the rate search.

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