Articles

Ready to get your read on? Dive into the article archive to help you build wealth through real estate investing. We feature top subject matter experts exploring every facet of the industry.

Articles

Ready to get your read on? Dive into the article archive to help you build wealth through real estate investing. We feature top subject matter experts exploring every facet of the industry.

How To Choose the Perfect Interior Paint Sheen

How To Choose the Perfect Interior Paint Sheen

You’ve picked the house –now, time for the fun part: choosing the wall colors. Unfortunately, as our Real Estate Rookie discovered, picking out something seemingly simple soon turned complicated. Instead of wasting time and money, we’ve got tips for you to choose the right sheen for the paint job. Think ...
Your Next BIG Investment Could Actually Be Very Tiny

Your Next BIG Investment Could Actually Be Very Tiny

INVESTOR VOICES - Sponsored Content Unlike stocks and bonds, real estate has proven to generate stable (and in many cases, significant) returns, which makes it an attractive investment and lucrative asset. This article weighs the pros and cons of each type of investment. For account holders of self-directed IRAs, real ...
Marketplace Platforms and Institutional Investors

Marketplace Platforms and Institutional Investors

Until the recent development of online real estate financing marketplaces, it was difficult for smaller investors to participate in direct investments in commercial real estate projects.  The development of these platforms also benefits institutional investors.  How can marketplace investing and institutional investors work together? Real estate finance marketplaces have experienced ...
Invitation Homes IPO Good for Buy-and-Hold Investors

Invitation Homes IPO Good for Buy-and-Hold Investors

The nation’s largest landlord is now trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Invitation Homes made its stock market debut on Jan. 31, 2017, as the largest IPO this year and a positive sign for the single-family rental market. The company claims it has almost 50,000 single-family rentals in 13 ...
Home Refinance Originations Increase Q4 of 2016

Residential Refinance Originations Increase Q4 of 2016

More than 1.7 million (1,748,177) loans were originated on U.S. residential property in the fourth quarter of 2016. This is down 15 percent from previous quarters but up 2 percent from a year ago, as reported by ATTOM Data Solutions, parent company of RealtyTrac, in its Q4 2016 U.S. Residential ...
Single-Family Rental Research Performance Summary

Single-Family Rental Research Performance Summary Released February 2017

Single-borrower, single-family rental securitizations rated by Morningstar Credit Ratings, LLC are performing within expectations. The Single-Family Rental Research Performance Summary, released February 28, 2017, shows the average vacancy rate improved to 4.9 percent from 5.1 percent in December 2016. Delinquencies held steady at 0.9 percent. Morningstar expects the vacancy rate ...
The Ideal Mobile Home Park for Your Investing Business

The Ideal Mobile Home Park for Your Investing Business

I was offered a mobile home for free last week. Score, right? No, I turned it down. I could keep it in the park, but it needed more work than I was willing to do. It simply did not meet my investment criteria, because I would not be able to ...
Cincinnati Real Estate Rental Market On Positive Course For Investors

Cincinnati Real Estate Rental Market On Positive Course For Investors

Cincinnati, Ohio, started 2016 off with a bang. The Queen City, which had been experiencing population declines since the 1950s and took the housing crash very, very hard (with losses in values and a foreclosure crisis that extended long into the purported national “recovery”), found itself once again gaining in ...
Diversify Your Real Estate Portfolio to Minimize Risk

Diversify Your Real Estate Portfolio to Minimize Risk

There is no doubt that real estate is usually one of the most stable long-term investments. But like everything else, this type of investment can experience hiccups. The 2008 recession is enough proof of that.  That said, you should still include real estate in your investment portfolio. However, if you ...
Investor Highlight: Bryan Blankenship

Investor Highlight: Bryan Blankenship

Bryan Blankenship describes himself as a “boring Ohio guy,” but the “general contractor at heart” is much more than that. With multiple roaring real estate investing businesses that literally run the gamut of the industry from retail fix-and-flips to commercial development, and a thriving turnkey rental property organization, Blankenship is ...
How To Use Virtual Reality To Your Advantage

How To Use Virtual Reality To Your Advantage

In the past, the commercial real estate industry has been regarded as a laggard in tech adoption. But when it comes to virtual reality (VR), it’s game on. In fact, commercial real estate as an industry has been a leader in embracing this increasingly popular technology, which is projected to ...
Real Estate Insurance Policy Myths Debunked

Real Estate Insurance Policy Myths Debunked

EDITOR’S NOTE: This excerpt is a continuation from “Debunking the 13 Insurance Myths for the Real Estate Investor,” which we began last issue. We’re exploring three common misperceptions about personal dwellings’ fire policy sufficiency for nonowner rentals, umbrella policies and how claims prior to owning a property can affect your ...
Small Investors Can Now Provide Turnkey Properties Nationwide

Small Investors Can Now Provide Turnkey Properties Nationwide

Large real estate investment firms have been riding a large wave of opportunity and profit margins by providing turnkey rental investment properties to out-of-town investors. We recognized that small investors failed to pursue this opportunity because they didn’t have all of the necessary components. This inefficiency led us to create ...
4 Tips On How To Pick The Right Tenant

4 Tips On How To Pick The Right Tenant

The screening process can be long and tedious at times, but it pays dividends to have the right tenant in place. Having a tenant who causes problems can be a real headache, especially for a new or inexperienced landlord. Luckily, the majority of tenant-related issues can be avoided altogether by using ...
5 Fail-Proof Ways To Generate Traffic To Your Website

5 Fail-Proof Ways To Generate Traffic To Your Website

In my last article for Think Realty Magazine, I shared the ingredients for a high-converting real estate investor website. That article focused on what is necessary to get website visitors to submit their personal information to you about the house they want, or possibly need, to sell. But even a ...
The Landlording World Is Flat. Or Is it?

The Landlording World Is Flat. Or Is it?

Stubborn misconceptions about landlords and property managers have led to some disastrous legislation. It’s time to make your voice heard. Despite Aristotle’s evidence (circa 330 B.C.) that the Earth is round, its shape nevertheless was hotly debated for centuries thereafter. Even today, “flat Earth societies” still exist, based on a belief ...
The Edwards Brothers: Expanding Their Real Estate Empire

The Edwards Brothers: Expanding Their Real Estate Empire

Almost 15 years ago, identical twin brothers Kelly and Chris Edwards found a historic house in Raleigh, North Carolina, that their real estate agent advised them not to buy. But they borrowed $5,000 from Dad and bought it anyway. The slanted floors were only the beginning of the repairs that ...
The Right Lending Partner: The Difference Between Project Profit & Loss

The Right Lending Partner: The Difference Between Project Profit & Loss

2016 was a solid year for the real estate industry, and the ranks of fix-and-flip rehabbers continues to swell. According to RealtyTrac, 5.1 percent of all condo and single-family-home sales in the third quarter of 2016 were of the fix-and-flip variety, totaling 45,718 transactions. As fix-and-flip properties remain a sizable ...
Rising Tides: How Concerned Should Investors Be?

Rising Tides: How Concerned Should Investors Be?

According to Climate Central, Florida has more than 3.5 million people at risk of coastal flooding due to rising sea levels. This number is expected to rise to 4.6 million by 2050. While South Florida is the poster child for coastal flooding due to global warming, it’s not the only ...
12 Questions For Properties Owners To Ask Themselves During Tax Season

12 Questions For Properties Owners To Ask Themselves During Tax Season

Accounting is the non-glamorous side of real estate investing, yet it is a critical component of cash flow and negotiations. You need to be well-versed in the latest federal and state rules surrounding taxes and accounting (e.g., exemptions, depreciation, deferrals, deductions, marginal tax rates, etc.) so you can use these ...
Exercise Your Rights for a Better Business and Life

Exercise Your Rights for a Better Business and Life

| Ben Rao | Article | Operations
You want to be a successful entrepreneur or have success with everything in your life, right? That means elevating your performance, and there’s no better way to help yourself accomplish that than by making exercise a regular and continuing part of your life. That’s top of mind for me now ...
Private Money Lending Guide: The Money Matchmaker

Private Money Lending Guide: The Money Matchmaker

| James Hart | Article | Profiles
For newer real estate investors, the world of private money loans can often feel intimidating, especially if they’ve only ever borrowed from traditional banks. But private money lenders – also known as “hard money” lenders – serve as important partners to real estate entrepreneurs who need relatively quick financing from ...
Shanghai

Chinese Investors Hit the Accelerator as Trump Presidency Progresses

When Donald Trump was elected 45th president of the United States, a number of real estate investors drew a huge sigh of trepidation along with the many other protestors of one of the country’s most divisive and controversial elections. While most U.S. real estate investors believed all personal preferences aside, ...
Social Media Gets Home Rehabs Noticed Fast

Social Media Gets Home Rehabs Noticed Fast

In our work as HomeVestors of America franchise owners for the past two years, we’ve found that social media gives us an extra boost. Of course, first, there’s the purchase of the distressed home (with all the calculations that go into the selection) and the hard rehab work. But fix-and-flip ...
The Advantages of Investing in Commercial Real Estate

The Advantages of Investing in Commercial Real Estate

Whatever your investment strategy, diversification offers some safety and security, so if one sector goes down, the other sectors—in theory—are less affected. There are opportunities for the short-term (three years or less) investor as well as the investor looking for a long-term (seven years or more) strategy. Commercial real estate ...