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.
Contributing Columnist, Owner-Financing Expert Launches Podcast
Real estate investing mentor and owner-financing expert Mitch Stephen, a regular contributor to Think Realty Magazine, has launched a new podcast, “Real Estate Investor Summit.” The podcast can be accessed at www.REInvestorSummit.com or via iTunes or Stitcher. “Real Estate Investor Summit is dedicated to delivering insightful interviews that teach listeners how to ...
Does the Math Add Up for Build-to-Rent Single-Family Homes?
Building single-family rental home neighborhoods seems like a great idea—until you run the math. Almost 12 percent of all households in the country now rent a single-family home. Certainly, a portion of these renters will pay a rental premium for a new home. However, there is a snag. While the ...
Best and Worst Cities in Which to Own Investment Property
Three Florida cities—Orlando, Tampa and Miami—rank among the Top 10 Cities in Which to Own Investment Property, according to results of an analysis published recently by GOBankingRates.com. The personal finance news and features website also ranked the Worst Cities in Which to Own Investment Property, with Anchorage, Alaska, taking that ...
Do the Numbers Square With the Hype in Real Estate Investing?
There’s a lot of excitement, interest and energy around residential real estate investing. But at the end of the day, the prudent investor—or the individual who is considering real estate investing, if he or she is smart—needs to look at the numbers. Make sure the numbers are aligned with and ...
Foreclosed Property is a Slam-Dunk Great Deal for a Smart Investor
As we film Episode 30 of our video series “Real Estate Deal Talk” it’s “Super Tuesday” in Georgia, which means all the tax sales, foreclosures, etc. are happening on the courthouse steps today. And just this morning we got a call from one of our lenders saying, “Listen, I’m going ...
The Housing Cycle: What Inning Are We In?
Where are we in the housing cycle? This, by far, is the question we get asked the most. It’s often framed with the metaphor of a nine-inning baseball game: What inning are we in? This question implies that markets move in unison, driven by similar factors. In reality, every market ...
A Slowing in High-End Housing?
Home prices are tied not only to interest rates and local demographic factors but also to new construction that brings on added supply to the housing stock. As prices rise, builders take on more construction projects, and the resulting new supply eventually permeates the market and can keep prices down ...
9 Numbers to Help Identify a Profitable Rental Property
What constitutes a good, profitable rental property? There’s no one, single answer to that question. No matter how many people you ask or how many calculations you run, you’re probably going to get that many different answers. I remember when I was starting out as a weekend or part-time investor, ...
Home Flipping at Six-Year High in Q2 2016
Home flips in the second quarter of 2016 were up 14 percent from the previous quarter and up 3 percent from a year ago, to the highest number of home flips since Q2 2010—a six-year high, according to the Q2 2016 U.S. Home Flipping Report from ATTOM Data Solutions, the ...
Tampa Tops Investment Housing Power Rankings
Three Florida cities—Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami—took spots atop HomeUnion’s first-ever “power rankings” of the top investment housing markets in the United States. Milwaukee ranked last among the 32 metro areas listed in the rankings. For the study, the online real estate investment management firm HomeUnion, ranked 31 metros based on how ...
My Advice: Start Small, With Single-Family Investments
I was recently in San Francisco for a speaking engagement. After I had returned to my home and business in Ohio, we started getting a lot of calls. These calls were from people based in California who have some pretty deep pockets—like about $300,000 to $400,000 to invest—but a lot ...
Like a Runner In a Marathon, Focus on Finishing ‘Best’
As I write this, it’s early September, kind of a turning point of the year heading into the fourth quarter and a change of seasons. And here in Dallas, where I am a real estate investor and HomeVestors franchise owner, we live in a very, very warm-weather climate, and another ...
4 Areas of Focus to Make Your Rehab Stand Out
The “lipstick on a pig” model is all but dead. Gone are the days of investors purchasing a house, putting in new carpet and paint and waiting a short period of time for the price to appreciate. For a house flipper, competition is increasing, and you need to make sure ...
How to Get a Property Tenanted In Less Than 30 Days
I am often asked how we get our properties tenanted so quickly. It’s because we focus on quality instead of quantity. First, we focus on buying a property in the right area, for the right amount of money and which needs the right amount of work. That makes the process ...
New RentRange Report Shows Strong Single-Family Rent Growth in Sun Belt States
Newly released RentRange data shows a continued trend of strong single-family rent growth among Sun Belt states, with MSAs in Florida and California most heavily represented on the list. Rising home values in Florida and California, in particular, are creating hurdles for potential buyers—and, therefore, are continuing to drive a ...
You are the CEO of Your Real Estate Investing Business
Today I want to talk about how we, as small real estate investors or part-time real estate investors, should step back from time to time and don a CEO’s hat, because that mentality can positively influence your approach to real estate investing and the success you ultimately achieve, enjoy and ...
How an Auto Mechanic is Like a Rehab Contractor
Has it ever occurred to you how similar are the processes of finding a reliable contractor to renovate your investment property and locating a decent mechanic to fix your car? Just think about it for a moment. When you own a car or a house, you are investing both your ...
HELOCs Increase for 17th Consecutive Quarter
Nearly 1.9 million (1,868,187) loans were originated on U.S. residential properties (1 to 4 units) in the second quarter of 2016, up 26 percent from the a two-year low in the previous quarter but down 4 percent from a year ago, according to ATTOM Data Solutions’ Q2 2016 U.S. Residential ...
How to Crack the Code and Get ‘Into the (Deal) Flow’
I hear it every day from clients, partners and at conferences: “My real estate business would be growing faster if I could just find the deals!” Our companies work for people just like you. Our clients include thousands of real estate investors and agents in markets all over the world ...
4 Ways to Start Small as a Real Estate Investor
The most common question that I’m asked as a real estate investor is, “How can I get started doing this?” I find that year after year, my answer to this question remains the same—regardless of the person with whom I am speaking, regardless of current market conditions and regardless of ...
The Best Military Towns for Investing in Rental Homes
HomeUnion, an online real estate investment management firm, has released new data on the best military towns for investing in single-family rental (SFR) properties based on average cap rates, which are the relationship between an investment property's net operating income (rents minus expenses) in the first year of ownership and ...
From Eyesore to Awesome—Times Two
In Episode 27 of my video series Real Estate Deal Talk, I’m going to take you through a project in super-hot Kirkwood in Atlanta. We’re going to look at a new build that is underway on the site of what originally was an old, burned-down church with a lot of ...
Have it Your Way, Whether it’s a Single Investing Strategy or a Variety
I was recently listening to a podcast of a real estate investor, one who might even be considered a guru. In this particular podcast he was touting the benefits of a certain type of residential real estate investing, but he also was disparaging all other types of investing that didn’t ...
Chinese Investors Like Stability of U.S. Market
Chinese investors, like those from other foreign countries, found deals aplenty in U.S. real estate at the height of the recent financial crisis here. Now that the U.S. economy has regained strength, the pickings aren’t as easy, but the Chinese remain as enamored of U.S. real estate as ever, even ...
The Tech Startup Curing the Lawn Care Headache
Ken Davis had a problem. About eight years ago, the Utah man started building a portfolio of rental properties—more than a hobby, but not quite large enough to justify hiring his own team. So, for a long time, Davis was on the hook for lining up vendors to mow his ...
