21-year-old real estate rookie turns a profit

PRICE HILL, OH (FOX 19) -- He is barely old enough to buy a beer but 21-year-old Ben Fry can negotiate with a bank to purchase a foreclosed home well below it's asking price.

Fry purchased his first property in August 2009 at the age of 20 for 6,000 dollars. Fry along with an investor flipped the Price Hill two family home making an 11,000 dollar profit.

"It's really just about having the eye of finding good properties and seeing the potential in them and really negotiating them down to a price where you can definitely make money on it, even if you don't make a lot of money, that you are still going to come out ahead," says Fry.

In his senior year at the University of Cincinnati, Fry is a Real Estate major already making a reality out of his studies.

"I know that like around 90 percent of the millionaires have gotten their wealth from real estate so that's just what I want to do," says Fry.

While he might not be a millionaire yet, Fry's advisor, Carol Prues, says he is on the path to success.

"He has always been a student who has always been forward thinking. Very ambitious about getting through his curriculum and getting the most he can out of his program," say Prues.

Last month Fry had ultimate success, turning a 100 percent profit from his first commercial property investment. He purchased the building for 30,000 dollars and was able to turn around in less than a month and sell it for 60,000 dollars.

"My key of getting that one at a really low price was finding out why the owner wanted to sell it, that's really the key when you're trying to negotiate real estate down. I just marketed it correctly and I put it online and I sold it three weeks later for 60,000," says Fry.

Taking that momentum, Fry is now ready to view and potentially purchase his next property in a new neighborhood. He says if everything falls into place, he could earn 40,000 dollars in six months.

To learn more about Fry and his investments, check out his website here.

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