Finding Rehab Deals in a Competitive Real Estate MarketIn markets around the country investors are working harder to find deals like those that were commonplace just a year ago. It’s not that rehab worthy deals are not out there, but many markets are not saturated with low-priced REOs, making rehabbers adapt their acquisition methods. There are several approaches investors can take in competitive markets to ensure they are not slowed down.How to Find Rehab Deals in a Competitive MarketTackle … [Read more...]
Real Estate in Singapore: Explorations of Asia for Property Investors
May 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Real Estate in Singapore: Explorations of Asia for Property InvestorsAh, Asia.It used to be so mysterious, exotic and dangerous. And in many peoples’ minds, it still is largely populated by martial artists and dragons, mysterious and foreboding, head-to-toe tattooed organized crime figures, deranged and dangerous regimes and bewildering technology, all nestled against a backdrop of incomprehensible cultural norms, sights and alien alphabets. All in all, more the substance of fiction and … [Read more...]
Using High Interest Private Financing is Still Better Than Cash
May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Using High Interest Private Financing is Still Better Than CashWith investors battling a tight credit market, the opportunity to obtain financing for investment properties can often times prove more difficult than expected for some investors. Five years ago many of these same investors had no problem walking into their local lender’s office and getting approved for a loan. Nowadays, it seems like underwriters need a blood sample to approve a loan for an investor (even when that investor could … [Read more...]
Be Careful When Inheriting a Tenant
May 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Be Careful When Inheriting a TenantWith the extraordinary number of short sales and foreclosures over the last few years, many distressed properties are actually being purchased with the previous tenant still residing in the property. For many investors, the thought of avoiding up front rehab costs as well as the time and expense associated with finding a tenant adds to the appeal of this scenario. Admittedly, I too have been drawn to certain properties because of the prospect of inheriting a … [Read more...]
Why Do Some Long Term Real Estate Investors Remain Local?
May 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Why Do Some Long Term Real Estate Investors Remain Local? This is me asking the over 90,000 members here about their thoughts on staying local, when the investment is, by definition, long term in nature. One of the principles on which I base decisions concerning where solid opportunities might reside, is the use of ‘macro analysis’. That is, learning in detail how a specific region and/or state views various related subjects about which investors of all stripes care deeply.Here’s an … [Read more...]
Systems for Managing Contacts and Direct Mail Campaigns for Investors
April 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Systems for Managing Contacts and Direct Mail Campaigns for InvestorsIn the past couple of articles I’ve shared here, I have talked about marketing to absentee owners and about setting up successful direct mail campaigns. There is one more important piece of this puzzle that we haven’t really gone into.How do I manage all of this information?In order to be successful over time you have to have a way to manage via systems. First of all, no matter where you get your list of targeted people to … [Read more...]
Door Knocking, Direct Mail and New Markets for Real Estate Investors
April 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Door Knocking, Direct Mail and New Markets for Real Estate Investors“Hello, my name is Marty. The company I work for asked me to drop by today to see if you’d be interested in selling your home. No? Well, if you change your mind, or perhaps you know someone in the area that would like to sell, please take my card and this information about our company. Thank you.”From 2004-2006, I used a variation of this script to knock on 60-80 doors every weekend. I was very strategic about the doors … [Read more...]
How a Commercial Short Sale Can Save the Day
April 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment
How a Commercial Short Sale Can Save the DayAs an investor, you’re looking for opportunities to help people. That should be your ultimate goal.Often, in bad economic times (like the past few years), companies need to reduce their asset load due to decreases in property values. In essence, the properties that were once assets are now burdens and foreclosure is a very real possibility. However, for an investor with a focus on what will happen down the road – not how the next mortgage payment … [Read more...]
Location & Jobs Should Be Priority For Real Estate Investors
April 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Location & Jobs Should Be Priority For Real Estate InvestorsAs real estate investors, we should always consider the location we invest in as part of our investing formula. Jobs, schools and a safe place to raise a family are what most end buyers consider when looking to rent or buy a home. If you are investing for the long term, the report below will helpRead the full post here... … [Read more...]
Creating Your Own Bank for Seller Financing For Quicker Returns
April 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Creating Your Own Bank for Seller Financing For Quicker ReturnsFor many real estate investors offering the option of seller financing is attractive if you want to get a property sold, but there could be one tiny hiccup! You may not have immediate returns on your cash to do your next investment deal especially if you’re an active investor looking to wholesale properties or do fix and flips. Here is a fairly simple and very real solution in today’s market that most investors overlook. … [Read more...]
Investor: More Activity in Short Sales
March 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Investor: More Activity in Short SalesThe total share of distressed properties in the housing market in February, as represented by the HousingPulse Distressed Property Index (DPI), continued to climb, reaching a near-record of 48.7%, using a three-month moving average. This was the second highest level ever recorded by HousingPulse and the 25th month in a row that the DPI has been above 40%. All of the growth in the distressed property share of the housing market over the past six months has … [Read more...]
Why Investors Lose Money on a certain Percentage of all Auction Deals
March 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Nearly one out of every four properties purchased by investors at auction over the past four years has cost them money, not because they didn’t know what they were doing but because lenders overvalued them when setting minimum bid and reserve amounts, especially in markets with weaker demand and an older housing stock. As a result, investors in one market alone, Cleveland, have lost over $56 million since 2006. A new study by two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Thomas J. … [Read more...]
Double Digit Returns to our Passive Investors?
March 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Double Digit Returns to our Passive Investors?When we share our model with other real estate investors they are always intrigued by the idea of “Recycling our Capital”. They get excited about the idea of passive or private investors investing in their business to super charge growth. However, something happens when we tell them that we pay our passive or private investors double-digit returns on repaired and rented units. They say things like:“I would never pay that much!”“Why … [Read more...]
Real Estate Investing, Application is the Difference
March 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
There seems to be an app for just about everything these days. I don’t need to tell you what an incredible resource BiggerPockets is for the novice to expert real estate investor. There’s an abundance of information here, from fixing and flipping to buying and holding to deal analysis to property management to note buying.But as my pastor likes to say, “Knowing the right things will not change your life. Doing the right things does.”Is your head full of unapplied real estate … [Read more...]
Execution Requires Knowledge, Expertise, and Experience
March 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Execution Requires Knowledge, Expertise, and ExperienceI talk with serious Real Estate investors everyday. Some have never invested in real estate before, some have. Most of ‘em have one thing in common, though — they wanna get it right. Nothin’ like the last decade or so to generate sober thinkin’. Who knew? The conversations I’ve been having recently have underlined the value of knowledge, expertise, and experience. The lessons to be learned from the last few decades are often . . … [Read more...]
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“Smart Money” Woke Up – Now What?
“Smart Money” Woke Up – Now What?I don’t know about your market, but I can point to the day the “Smart Money Woke Up” and started changing the real estate fundamentals for the buy-and-hold investor. It was like a starters gun went off and competition tripled, prices went up 20% in the distressed market and bidding wars became not only commonplace but also became the norm.I believe the trigger was pulled by Warren Buffett and his now famous quote that went something like this:“I … [Read more...]