The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Real Estate Financing Does this sound familiar to you?You’ve found the perfect house. It meets all your criteria, in a terrific location, and makes your heart skip a beat just thinking of it. So you whip out your checkbook and write the check for the full purchase price, remembering of course to record the purchase in your check register.Of course not.Financing real estate is not usually as simple as that. Finding the funds to buy a piece of real estate is … [Read more...]
Does Your Real Estate Club (REIA) have a L.O.T.S. Program?
October 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Does Your Real Estate Club (REIA) have a L.O.T.S. Program? I am a big fan of REIA Clubs. It is a place where real estate investors can learn for little or no cost regardless of their level of investing experience. There are always folks there that know a whole lot more than you do, as well as those that know less than you do so it’s a perfect place for just about everyone to learn and network. It is also the place where you will most likely find your first mentor or two. The members in our … [Read more...]
8 Stupid Mistakes That Can Kill Your Real Estate Investing Business
September 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
8 Stupid Mistakes That Can Kill Your Real Estate Investing Business When you were a baby, you made tons of mistakes.You learned to walk on your own by walking, falling, getting up, walking again, falling…You hit your head, you cried, and you learned to be more careful… but, what would have happened if you one day decided to give up walking entirely?You said: “This walking thing is just too tough for me, y’know I keep hitting my head, bumping my butt, its just waaaay too hard. I think … [Read more...]
The Power of Appreciation and Leverage: Boost Your Real Estate Returns
September 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Power of Appreciation and Leverage: Boost Your Real Estate Returns If you’ve read any of my blogs on BiggerPockets, http://www.biggerpockets.com, you’ve probably noticed that I am a believer in real estate appreciation. Yes, real estate can and has lost value in recent years; but over time, real estate generally increases in value. This is especially true if you happen to time the market effectively. I have not been shy about the fact that I believe now is a very good time to buy … [Read more...]
What’s In Your Real Estate Purchase Contract?
September 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment
What’s In Your Real Estate Purchase Contract? How wordy do you need to be when purchasing a property? Some purchase offer contracts can run into the dozens of pages. I find the opposite works better for me. I currently use simple and concise contract language that fits on about one page when I wish to make an offer on a property. This contract language has evolved over the years and I use it for several reasons.It keeps things simple.Keeping it simple sometimes makes the deal.I can … [Read more...]
Inspecting A House: A Valuable Real Estate Education that Costs a Penny
September 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Inspecting A House: A Valuable Real Estate Education that Costs a Penny Want to vastly increase the probabilities of success in the real estate investment business? Want to create a perception about yourself that instills trust and confidence? Well for the first 50 people to sign up, you can accomplish this for the introductory price of $1,495!But wait! If you sign up within the next two days, you can get this for only… are you ready? $997!Sound familiar? I have good news and good news (no … [Read more...]
Your Real Estate Command Station
September 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Your Real Estate Command Station Efficiency is the name of the game. The less time you spend on a task, the more time you have to spend with family, friends, toys, vacations, etc.If you’ve read some of my other articles, you know that as a former engineer, I can’t help but be obsessive compulsive about making processes and tasks as efficient as possible.As I was sitting at my “command station” (desk in my office) contemplating what this article should be about, I noticed I had an … [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...]
Are Your Real Estate Goals, Actually Goals?
September 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Are Your Real Estate Goals, Actually Goals? Goals.I think the first time I learned about goals was sometime in elementary school. We’ve all heard of them. We all know what they are. We all know how to set them… but do we really?I found in myself that as I grew older and got into the ‘real world’, my goal setting practices never grew with me. Instead, they stayed back in the pleasant little “I have no worry” land of elementary/middle school. The way we are taught originally … [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...]
Record Keeping: How to Manage and Organize Your Real Estate Investment Files
August 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Record Keeping: How to Manage and Organize Your Real Estate Investment Files It was about two years ago when my wife and I made an appointment to see our tax professional. In order to better prepare ourselves for the meeting, we decided to organize all the paperwork associated with our rentals the night before. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until about four hours later that we found everything we needed for the next day.It was then that I realized we didn’t have a good system in place for … [Read more...]
Pursuing Real Estate Investing Freedom? Consider Getting a Real Estate License!
August 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Pursuing Real Estate Investing Freedom? Consider Getting a Real Estate License! One of the most highly talked about and debated questions within the world of real estate investing is ‘should’ or ‘should you not’ get licensed in your state? There are numerous articles on BiggerPockets discussing pros and cons and everything in between, but I wanted to throw my $.02 into the debate.There are a ton of financial reasons to pursue the license, but in this article, I’m going to focus on … [Read more...]
Muscle Memory for Real Estate: Improving Your Efficiency
August 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Muscle Memory for Real Estate: Improving Your Efficiency According to Wikipedia, the definition of ‘muscle memory’ is as follows:Muscle memory has been used synonymously with motor learning, which is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition. When a movement is repeated over time, a long-term muscle memory is created for that task, eventually allowing it to be performed without conscious effort. This process decreases … [Read more...]
The Choice: Making Money Wholesaling vs Getting Your Real Estate License
July 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Choice: Making Money Wholesaling vs Getting Your Real Estate LicenseThe conversation can get quite “lively” when you put Realtors in a room with a group of real estate investors, especially if those Realtors aren’t investors themselves. And, this is just exactly what happened to me on the 4th of July. Inevitably we end up discussing folks that get their real estate license and the “other group of people” that work in the business as real estate investors.I went to a celebration on … [Read more...]
Your Real Estate Scope of Work: Reducing The Drama
June 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Your Real Estate Scope of Work: Reducing The Drama “Why did you replace that light fixture? I said not to! I’m not paying for that!”- “Excuse me? I remember you pointing to that fixture and saying you wanted it replaced! You ARE paying me!”Yuck. Sounds like something you’d hear on a Jerry Springer episode entitled He Said. She said. Although I’ve never been in a situation like this, I’ve heard stories from others who have and have never envied a fellow investor who ‘has’ … [Read more...]
How Should You Structure Your Real Estate Partnership?
May 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment
How Should You Structure Your Real Estate Partnership?A partnership occurs when two or more people join together for business purposes. It’s a legal entity recognized by the state where the partnership was formed. Partnerships can take many different forms based on risk allocation and tax purposes. Let’s take a look at some common partnership structures. A word of caution before we proceed: Each state may have slightly different rules and regulations governing partnerships. Take the time to … [Read more...]
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