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.

7 Creative Ways To Market Your Property

7 Creative Ways To Market Your Property

In a sea of MLS listings, creative marketing can help your property stand out. While these seven strategies may not be for everyone or for every property, under the right circumstances, one of them may help you get a competitive edge. 1. Throw a Party Open houses attract buyers on ...
The Sweet Smell of Success

The Sweet Smell of Success

The calls to OdorXit’s 1-877 help line come practically all day, every day. On the phone are real estate investors desperate to banish the stench of skunk spray, cigarette smoke and dead animals from their rental properties. OdorXit’s president, Deb Meyer, has heard practically every horror story out there—and has ...
Understanding Insurance Designations

Understanding Insurance Designations

You have created an entity to hold title to your real estate, but did you change your insurance policy to reflect the change in ownership? Unfortunately, some real estate investors who create LLCs, land trusts or other entities to hold title to their real estate forget or improperly update their ...
Creative Disruption

Creative Disruption

Innovation has been slow to arrive in the real estate sector, despite the fact that it’s a staggeringly large industry and would seem to be ripe for internet-fueled disruption. While real estate tech companies like Zillow get the lion’s share of digital ink, startups are creating innovation in almost every ...
Focus on Foreclosures

Focus on Foreclosures

RealtyTrac’s Midyear 2016 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report shows a total of 533,813 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings—default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions—in the first six months of 2016, down 20 percent from the previous six months and down 11 percent from the first six months of 2015. The report ...
The Land of Opportunity

The Land of Opportunity

No matter what your political or social view of the United States of America, you must acknowledge that it is by far one of the most attractive countries in which to invest today. Although many investors struggle with the uncertainty of tomorrow, we have a much more stable environment than ...
What’s Your Edge?

What’s Your Edge?

There is no other business like the real estate business. Everything that is acquired can be negotiated, and the most important negotiations are terms and price. Terms are far more important than price, because you can obtain terms at low or no interest and then the rent from the house ...
Global Connections: Finding the Right Overseas Partner

Global Connections: Finding the Right Overseas Partner

| Think Realty | Article | Operations
Will Holly President and Founder, Holly Nance Group 609-256-6155 Our overseas investing partners use us for three services: to buy turnkey or wholesale, or for private money. Turnkey is when the property is already renovated and rented with property management in place. Wholesale is when we find a great deal ...
Estimating Operating Expenses

Estimating Operating Expenses

In previous articles, we have covered the need to understand terms, concepts and fundamentals of cash-flow analysis, as well as how to estimate effective gross income, operating expenses and net operating income. This third installment in our series focuses your attention on operating expenses, which are those paid by a ...
Labor Shortage Ahead

Labor Shortage Ahead

A surge in retirees (people turning 65) will slow the growth of workers in the United States. In 2000, 2 million people turned 65; 3.5 million did in 2016; and 4 million will in 2021. Even with a higher-than-usual rate of retiree-aged people working, U.S. economic growth will almost certainly ...
Noteworthy Markets

Noteworthy Markets

Many real estate investors are looking to expand into new markets as backyard deals become scarcer and thinner based on demand for product, reduced HUD foreclosures and property values recovering from the mortgage meltdown. While new investors struggle to find local deals, seasoned and savvy investors are moving into new ...
2016 Top 10 Investing Hot Spots

2016 Top 10 Investing Hot Spots

The national housing market continues to heat up, with U.S. home sales hitting a nine-year high in May and home prices soaring 4.7 percent year-over-year in the same month. Add to that $636.7 billion in much-needed new construction (again, on a national level) up 5 percent in May over April, ...
Home Sales Increasing Faster in Counties with Low Natural Hazard Risk

Home Sales Increasing Faster in Counties with Low Natural Hazard Risk

ATTOM Data Solutions’ just-released 2016 U.S. Natural Hazard Housing Risk Index found that home sales in the first six months of 2016 increased 4.2 percent from the same time period a year ago in the bottom fifth of U.S. counties with the lowest level of natural hazard risk—more than twice ...
Grass grow up from dollars

Capital Ideas: Where to Find the Funding for Your Deals

We’re talking about something pretty cool in this blog post: how to find the best capital for your real estate flips and real estate rentals. (This is taken from Episode 24 of my YouTube series, “Real Estate Deal Talk.”) One of the best ways I’ve been able to do that, ...
Businessman explaining graph to his colleague

Investment Home Prices Growing Faster Than Owner-Occupied

Recently released data from HomeUnion shows median prices for U.S. investment housing growing at a faster rate than owner-occupied home prices. According to the new HomeUnion Home Sales Report, prices for investment housing – both financed and all-cash–jumped 7.1 percent to $213,300, while the median price for owner-occupied homes increased ...
underwater flooding interior

More than 1 in 10 Homeowners Still Underwater, Zillow Figures Show

| Zillow | Article | Market & Trends
Both urban and suburban communities have a significant share of homeowners in negative equity five years into the recovery, according to the second quarter Zillow® Negative Equity Report. In a press release, Zillow said 13.7 percent of homeowners in urban regions and 11.2 percent of homeowners in suburban regions across ...
championship medals

Are You Going for the Gold, or Were You Not Even Invited?

| Kevin Guz | Article | Fundamentals
As I write this, the summer Olympic Games are going on in Rio. And as I watch the competition, I can’t help correlating the Games to my life as a real estate investor in Dallas, Texas. At the Olympics, we see the top athletes from around the world competing at ...
Slow and Steady Growth

Slow and Steady Growth

Centrally located in the Sunshine State, Orlando has always been a popular destination—not just for tourists, but for relocating families and investors, as well. The weather and job growth witnessed decades of slow, steady growth in population and real estate values. This healthy growth turned into rampant speculation during the ...
Rising from the Ashes

Rising from the Ashes

I’m thinking of a city with the busiest international border crossing in North America. Where downtown apartment vacancy rates are below 5 percent and continuously dropping. A city neighbored by suburbs with some of the safest rated living standards in the United States, where entry home prices are in the ...
Bubbling with Profit Potential

Bubbling with Profit Potential

Where are many reasons to invest in Kansas City, Missouri—one of our clients’ favorite markets. Well-known for its contributions to the musical styles of blues and jazz, the city is also noted for its Kansas City-style barbecue.  And with over 200 fountains, it has been dubbed the “City of Fountains.” ...
Red-Hot, But Is It Sustainable?

Red-Hot, But Is It Sustainable?

We have all seen market cycles—the peaks, the dips, the flat lines. So what makes a real estate market stand out? Time. How long does it dip? How long does it climb? Does it follow other market trends? Why or why not? The answers to all of these are questions speak ...
Going Up

Going Up

The single-family house business in the Tampa area has investors scrambling for scraps for house purchasing opportunities. The multiple listing service (MLS) and mortgage foreclosures are where most investors begin their search. Multiple bids on various opportunities put sellers in the position to sound the bell for highest and best ...
IRA Investing Hot Spots

IRA Investing Hot Spots

The convergence of two important trends—the improving U.S. real estate market and growing interest in self-directed retirement savings plans—presents an opportunity for people saving for their post-working years. Self-directed IRAs give you the freedom to invest in a wider range of assets, including real estate. The following data from clients ...
Oceanfront Paradise

Oceanfront Paradise

San Diego is a coastal town with more than 140 sunny days, low humidity and very few mosquitos. Ocean-access properties always seem to weather the storms and are the first to come out of a recession. The rent prices have increased 13.6 percent between the 3rd quarter of 2014 and ...
Texas-Sized Demand

Texas-Sized Demand

Another sign—if you need it—that the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area is a prime target for real estate investors is this: DFW has only around two months of resale housing inventory available for sale. This is truly a seller’s (and smart investor’s) market. DFW housing is being squeezed by three unrelenting ...