Buying a house with credit cards

[Gunnar419]

I may have the opportunity to buy a dirt cheap fixer house. I mean DIRT cheap, foreclosed, abandoned, but no possibility of a mortgage.

My question is I'm considering buying this mostly on credit cards and I want to know HOW you do that.

I know the possible drawbacks of fixer houses and using credit cards for house buying, so I don't need warnings about hidden costs, high interest rates, or running up my utilization.  I've already warned myself about all that. What maybe some experienced people can tell me is HOW you use a credit card to buy a house.

The real estate agent tells me you can only do it by taking cash advances on the cards and I know that can create problems, but I'm wondering if there's any way to treat it like a regular purchse. Or if it does have to be cash, is there any way to tell the cccs in advance what I'm doing so they don't think I'm just being crazy suddenly taking thousands in cash advances.

[HiLine]

Interesting idea. Normally I would say that if the real estate agent codes the transaction as cash advance there would be no way around it. But I honestly don't have any experience with this type of transaction, so I'm just going to sit tight and listen.

[sarkell]

Do you have a relationship with a bank maybe a personal loan. Just a thought.

[webhopper]

Its probably easier to buy a house on a personal Line of Credit than it is to buy a house on a credit card. Many Credit Unions offer the Personal LOC.

I opened up one with Navy Fed in Sept, to pay my contractor for a large remodel project and avoid swipe fees.

You can use wepay.com or similar services to purchase the house.. .but you'll get into having swipe fees.

A LOC is a revolving account, so as soon as it is paid off, then the funds will be available to use again, unlike a personal loan.

Wells Fargo, US Bank, and many other places offer these.  You can even secure the Line with personal assets.

Eventually I want to have a secured LOC for my business so that I'm not putting these things on my personal LOC.

[Gunnar419]

Thanks for the response, HiLine. The real estate agent wouldn't be coding the transaction at all. Payment would be made to a title company and to the best of my understanding, title companies don't take credit cards at all. The bank that holds the property will choose the title company, so I can't even ask about it with local title companies I've used before.

I'm wondering whether a company like williampaid might be able to handle it, but I'm hoping somebody who has bought a house or land on credit cards will know for sure.

[webhopper]

You can also do a "Balance Transfer" and list your checking account # as the account to be transferred to, and then the cash will go to your bank account. BT fees will apply

[Gunnar419]

Thank you, sarkell and webhopper. I do have a small account at a local bank, but my income is low and I don't know that any banker or credit union officer would extend me either a personal loan or an LOC even though I have good credit. I do have other people I could possibly borrow from, but it would mean asking favors or asking them to invest in a friend, something I'm reluctant to do.

Credit cards aren't the ideal choice, I know, but they do seem to be a no hassle possibility, which is why I'm looking into this method.

[Gunnar419]

---

@webhopper wrote:

You can also do a "Balance Transfer" and list your checking account # as the account to be transferred to, and then the cash will go to your bank account. BT fees will apply

---

Really good thought, there! I remember somebody talking about that on the forums not long ago. I should look into that, definitely!

[NonSufficientFunds]

Back in the 1980s, there were some late-night infomercials explaining how this could be done. 

The basic idea was to approach the seller and ask them what they would consider accepting instead of cash.

If they wanted furniture, appliances, tools, etc., for their new house, you could purchase the stuff with credit and offer it in exchange for an interest in the property.  If you had the credit to finance a boat, car, camper, or something else the seller wanted, you might be able do do some wheeling & dealing to make the deal work.

I don't know if anyone was ever successful at pulling it off (besides the paid shills on the infomercials), and I don't see such schemes being peddled anymore.

It sounds like a super-risky venture. 

Besides having to service all that high-interest debt, any house that is super-cheap, probably needs major work, and is likely in a depressed area, which means it will also be very hard to sell in a short enough time to make it worth the destruction of your credit.

[Cali_Credit]

DCU offers the same rate for purchases, balance transfers ect, just have to login online and transfer with one click from any credit cards or lines of credit. Just fYI this sounds risky paying with multiple credit cards and the creditors may soft pull and lower limits and close out your cards.