I will be filing bankruptcy soon....Does anyone know how it would affect ability to invest in properties? I would really like to invest in real estate once Im done with my real estate classes. Any info would be helpful.

It depends on what form of bankruptcy your are attempting.

Your questions should be directed to your attorney not real estate agents since we do not know your specific circumstances.

In general, your credit scores will normally be impacted significantly. Using traditional investment techniques you will most probably have significant difficult for 3 year or more and you will probably have some negative impact for 7 or more years.

The type bankruptcy will impact everything including how clear you will be from your defaulted obligations.

You should know that your bankrupt status can impact your desirability as an associate agent. Many brokerages feel it represents to great of a risk, but most will look at your qualifications on a one on one basis. A lot would depend on the reasons for the bankruptcy and if it were within your ability or should have been within your ability to avoid the situation where you defaulted on your obligations.

Your Broker and everyone else will evaluate you, on your past failure to honor obligations. That should be understood as a given fact.

ok...not sure i understand how would it impact my desirability as an agent... From My experience, I have be an agent before My personal credit had nothing to do with any broker that Ive ever dealt with. I Had some credit issues in the past and want to know if any had any experience or problems with or filed Bankruptcy before and tried to invest in real estate before.

On the applications for the three Realtor Associations I've been members ov there is a question that asks "have you ever filed for bankruptcy protection."

Desirability as an agent...........

Like it or not each person is judged ont here credit history and that includes bankruptcy.Each person they assess a risk factor just like insurance companies due for handing out re licenses based on criminal history,credit etc.

It has been shown that people that make bad decisions int he past will make them in the future.If all you want to do is invest get a business partner to front the cash and split the profits.

The ACT of just filing for bankruptcy will ruin your credit,most people do not know this.

They file and then do not go through with it but it still hits your credit report.If you file a ch 13 you won't start rebuilding credit until the plan is pad off.

if by "invest in real estate" you mean using credit to purchase properties, then obviously, you will have a much harder time to accomplish what you want to do with a BK on your record for the next 10 years

some lenders will make loans to people who have received a Ch 7 discharge or completed a Ch 13 plan, WITH HIGHER POINTS AND SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER INTEREST RATES

just curious. . . what is your investment strategy once you emerge from bankruptcy? how do you foresee acquiring properties?

To be honest...I ran until some really bad times Financially and made some mistakes in the past and simple cannot afford to pay off the debt that I owe...Just wanted to know my possibilities or options for investing.

Talk to a bankruptcy attorney asap.The ability to file bankruptcy and what is best for your situation will depend on how much of your debt is secured or unsecured.Unsecured can all be wiped out in a chapter 7 which is very hard to qualify for now since bapca was put into place.

Secured the items will have to be paid off or they take the collateral because it is a secured itme like cars,your house,furniture etc.Some items like a car or furniture can be crammed down to it's current day value if you have had it for say 2 or 3 years or longer.Example you have a car loan owing 12 grand on it but todays value is only 6k you can cram it down to that amount in the ch 13 repayment plan.

The downside in a ch 13 is you do not automoatically start rebuilding credit like a ch 7.In a 13 if the plan is for 3 years you have to wait until the plan is finished and discharged before your credit starts to rebuild.

The average statistic by the national attorneys for bankruptcy is only about 19 percent of people that file bankruptcy finish there plan and get discharged the rest default sometime in the repayment plan and the case gets dismissed.

Credit is not the only way to buy a house.You can use a hard money lender or private money and split the deal with another investor.

good luck not giving legal advice

basically if you file bankruptcy your credit will be very low it will be below 500 meaning any loan you get would be hard money loans and even those i don't think you'll get for the first 2 years or so. Anything that involves checking your credit first you can not do. like car loans, mortgages, etc.

The advice that everyone else is not giving you is that you should not be using your personal credit to invest in real estate.

If you have already filed and it has been discharged then you need to look at forming a corporation and begin building a corporate credit rating.

Thanks guys...I will be talking to an attorney soon. Paul, do you know how I can form a corporation to build a corporate credit rating when my personal credit is so messed up?

Thank you all for you input!

go here and research the forum.
http://www.creditboards.com/mambo/

youll learn how to build your corporate credit quickly by establishing 3-6 accounts within a few months. also if youre going to do investing, create a business plan and apply for a business line of credit with your local banks.

look up this strategy called "subject to or sub2" in regards to creative investing. you can get into properties without using your credit.

also look up dunn & bradstreet. http://dnb.com/us/

I think you will find in most states, one of the basic questions in the filling for most entities is Have You Ever Filed Bankruptcy?

It will probably show in your States Entity Fillings and can reduce your ability to get the initial support for getting credit of the entity. States want to try to prevent people from using Entities as false fronts for things like scams. They are not very successful but enough so to complicate the process for the rest of us.

Maybe in FL but not in IL, NV, MD or DE to name just 4.