Why Invest In Real Estate? “It’s tangible, it’s solid, it’s beautiful. It’s artistic, from my standpoint, and I just love real estate.” -Donald Trump Let me ask you a very simple, yet profound question: Why invest in real estate? Understanding the answer or answers to this question will help you along your investment career. The following are a few common answers I have received when I ask the question: Why People Invest in Real Estate Freedom: Frankly, this is why I … [Read more...]
Reality TV Real Estate Flipping: How ‘Real’ is It?
October 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Reality TV Real Estate Flipping: How ‘Real’ is It? Hi. My name is Clay and I’m a reality TV addict.Survivor, Shark Tank, The Amazing Race, Big Brother, and the list goes on…At the top of my list though are the reality shows about real estate, in particular, flipping. I am a sucker for them, and if I’m honest, they were a big reason why I decided to get into real estate in the first place. I mean don’t you see the massive amounts of profits real estate investors make in 30 – 60 … [Read more...]
Why Investors Were the Real Heroes of 2011
October 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Why Investors Were the Real Heroes of 2011 A single survey, even if conducted to meet the highest professional standards of opinion research, can only include a limited number of questions, and thus, it can address a finite number of issues.That was the case with the Joint BiggerPockets.com/Memphis Invest survey released last week. I had the pleasure to participate in its design and execution, and we focused to three vital issue investors face: their purchasing plans for the near future … [Read more...]
2 Ways Washington Can Use Real Estate Investors To End The Housing Crisis
September 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment
2 Ways Washington Can Use Real Estate Investors To End The Housing Crisis Like many people in my generation, I spent a few extra years in college, 5 ½ to be exact, and yet I have no diploma to hang on my wall. I enjoyed my years at the University of Memphis playing a varsity sport, hanging with my fraternity brothers and in general trying to avoid studying. Don’t get me wrong though, I learned a lot in my time there and it has absolutely served me well since leaving college. I was a … [Read more...]
The $9.2 Billion Impact of 28.1 Million U.S. Real Estate Investors
September 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The $9.2 Billion Impact of 28.1 Million U.S. Real Estate Investors As most of you know, BiggerPockets.com has been the online home for real estate investors for almost 8 years. Through that time, we’ve developed intimate knowledge of the investor market and mindset. However, we knew that simply stating our belief from those years of insight and access to investors was not going to mean much, if anything, unless it could be backed up by scientifically significant data. We felt it was … [Read more...]
Cash Reserves For The Long Term Real Estate Investor — Things Change
September 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Cash Reserves For The Long Term Real Estate Investor — Things Change As happens often in conversations with ongoing clients, I bring up the subject of cash reserves. It usually surfaces naturally when they make known their desire to explore the acquisition of more investment property. Since we all live in the universe of reality, we understand the status quo is but a measurement of the here and now. Assuming your financial status has remained static the last 1-5 years is a mistake we simply … [Read more...]
Your First Steps as a New Real Estate Investor
September 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Your First Steps as a New Real Estate Investor I began walking just minutes from childbirth.I walked right out the door as my mother was being carted out in a wheel chair. The doctors were amazed.By three months old I was power walking around my local shopping mall (with sweat pants), by six months old I was running side by side with my old man, and by one year I had completed(and won) my first Boston Marathon. It’s all been easy since then.Impressive, right?Of course this isn’t true.I … [Read more...]
A Great Real Estate Attitude… thanks to Disney!
September 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
A Great Real Estate Attitude… thanks to Disney! There’s nothing like pulling inspiration from a childhood Disney movie. You would think that these sorts of movies are only good for keeping your kids occupied; however, The Mighty Ducks (1992) has one quote in particular that I believe is a “must-have” if you plan on being successful in real estate:“It’s not worth winning if you can’t win big!”Still gets me fired up even after all these years!Let me take the words right out of … [Read more...]
What’s That Underperforming Property REALLY Costing You?
September 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment
What’s That Underperforming Property REALLY Costing You? I was out of town last week and had an opportunity to meet a number of different investors on my trip. One conversation in particular stuck with me because I believe the scenario is common to a lot of people. Many investors that are in the market today for investment properties were the same ones that were buying properties either during the real estate frenzy of the mid-2000’s or on the front end of the recession (before prices had … [Read more...]
Your Brand and Your Competition
September 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Your Brand and Your Competition If you were the only real estate investor in the United States, branding wouldn’t matter. But you’re not the only one. There are hundreds of thousands of other real estate investors all vying for the same great property investments. These people are your competition. And they are the reason branding is so important for real estate investment success. Scope out the Competition Unless you are totally new to the area, you probably have an idea of who your … [Read more...]
The Number One Irrational Behavior of Real Estate Investors
September 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Number One Irrational Behavior of Real Estate Investors If you ever get a chance to read my posts on the BiggerPockets forums, you notice that I am a big proponent of education, mentor ship, coaching, whatever you want to call it. I call it surrounding yourself with people you want to learn from and always learning something new. One week ago, I had the chance to travel to Boston to attend the Hubspot Inbound ’12 conference and do both!Before tying this into real estate, I think … [Read more...]
Upside of a Down Market
September 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Upside of a Down Market The real estate market experienced such a prolonged downturn that it created a number of new opportunities for those who stopped wallowing in misery and got on with their business. Few areas were hit as hard as Las Vegas yet many investors and realtors are thriving. So many real estate agents left the business that it reduced competition among those who remained. It also allowed the truly skilled to standout. Some whined about the lost commissions of yesterday while … [Read more...]
The Importance of Branding for REIs
September 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Importance of Branding for REIs As a busy real estate investor, branding might be the last thing on your mind. But it’s an important and valuable part of your business image. In the next few blog posts I’ll be talking about branding for real estate investors. Today, let’s start with the basics. What is Branding? Your brand is what defines your business. It’s more than just a logo, color scheme, tagline or celebrity sponsor. It’s what makes your business different and better … [Read more...]
3 Missteps That Can Derail Your Real Estate Investing
August 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
3 Missteps That Can Derail Your Real Estate Investing With the unprecedented drop in real estate values over the last few years, more and more people are trying their hand at real estate investing. With the wealth of available knowledge related to real estate investing, it is not difficult to research the possible investment strategies and locations in which to invest.Not surprisingly, investors in this market cycle seem to be more cautious about their investing … especially when compared … [Read more...]
So You Want to be a Full Time Real Estate Investor?
August 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
So You Want to be a Full Time Real Estate Investor? Reading Michael Zuber’s post the other day got me thinking back to the days when I was a newbie investor and still had a full time day job. My weekends were pretty full also, as well as many of my nights after work. My wife and I worked very hard, buying and rehabbing properties, dealing with tenants, raising and saving capital. Heck, I even cut all the yards for a while. However, we worked so hard because we had a goal.That goal was … [Read more...]
Are Real Estate Investor Clubs Helpful?
August 15, 2012 By 1 Comment
Are real estate investor clubs a productive use of your time to attend? I get this question a lot. Real estate investment clubs have been around for decades and most are non-profit associations whose members gather together monthly to share ideas and network. The larger the city, the larger the group, and in some cities, there are more than one in the same city. On the surface, real estate investor clubs seem like ideal meetings for local investors to attend. However, there are some things to … [Read more...]
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History Doesn’t Repeat Itself but it Does Frequently Rhyme
History Doesn’t Repeat Itself but it Does Frequently Rhyme To say we are in or entering a time of uncertainty is an understatement of massive proportions. However, you can either let the uncertainty cause paralysis or you can take action by reviewing historical times of great upheaval and apply the lessons learned.While I believe in staying current on all of the hot topics, I find it a lot more valuable to review history to see how things worked out in the past. Most importantly, I try … [Read more...]