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.
1031 Exchange, named after Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code, allows a real estate investor to defer (postpone) tax liability when selling one property and buying another. This raises an important question: How much income tax will I owe if I sell this property but do not acquire a ...
When we look at claims information we see that many of the properties subject to break-ins, thefts and vandalism are usually vacant or going through renovations to prepare them for sale or the next tenant. I’m sure it’s truly disappointing to arrive to show a house that was finished only ...
Know Before You Go: A Loan Commitment Checklist
While issues such as interest rates, principal loan amounts, underwriting requirements, etc., generally are included in a loan commitment, many issues are often not addressed until after the prospective borrower has signed the loan commitment, paid the nonrefundable loan commitment fee and funded, in advance, a deposit for expenses related ...
As a specialist in owner financing of residential properties and a teacher to students across the nation, I am often asked about the default rate. Nationally, in 2010, the default rate for subprime loans was about 10 percent, but those likely included options, adjustable-rate mortgages and other variable interest loans ...
5 Strategies For Building Wealth Through Note Buying
"You can make a living brokering notes, but you get wealthy owning notes!” This statement from a pioneer real estate note investor provided one of those “lightbulb” moments for me. Determined to start owning notes, I left a 10-year “job” in the corporate note-buying world to start my own note ...
Whether this is your first flip or your 20th flip, there are strategies you can use to help make your business even more successful. Fixing-and-flipping homes can be profitable for real estate investors in a number of different cycles. An important thing to keep in mind when starting out is ...
Seriously Underwater Property Numbers Decline
ATTOM Data Solutions’ recently released Q2 2016 U.S. Home Equity and Underwater Report shows 6,666,622 seriously underwater properties. That number represents 11.9 percent of all U.S. properties with a mortgage as of the end of the second quarter 2016—down from 12.0 percent in the previous quarter and down from 13.3 ...
Five ‘Gotta-Have’ Tools for Real Estate Investors
We all love lists, right? And today I’ve got an awesome one for you—five great tools that I know can help you in your real estate investing. Tool No. 1: Think Realty Starting with the obvious: The first one is Think Realty Magazine. You’ve got to subscribe to the Think ...
Trends in Real Estate: Urbanization, Changing Office Usage
Certain American cities are seeing prices rise; others are starting to cool. Some broader demographic trends have continued, though—urbanization is on the upswing, and urban office usage patterns are changing. Home Buyers Want Cities No less than Robert Shiller—a 2013 Nobel laureate in economics, professor of economics at Yale University ...
As a Real Estate Investor, Are You a Jack-of-All-Trades or Master-of-One?
As a real estate investor, should you be a jack-of-all-trades or a master-of-one? It’s a very important distinction because it will influence what kind of real estate investments you make. In exploring this subject, probably the best place to start is with something relatively familiar—the concept of diversified investments. You ...
Newbies, Don’t Let Sellers Take Advantage of You
I’ve got a gripe, and I think it’s important to share it so that some of the newbies out there don’t get unfairly taken advantage of. It’s driving me nuts that new investor—and even some seasoned, pro investors—are buying deals at terrible prices. I see it happening in Atlanta, where ...
NAR Student Debt/Housing Survey Provides Insight for Investors
Imagine this familiar scenario that so many Millennials face: they spend four years in college working hard to attain the grades they’ll need to get profitable employment once their schooling is complete, but at the same time, they are amassing thousands upon thousands of dollars’ worth of student loan debt ...
Home Values Higher in ZIP Codes With Good Schools
Homes in ZIP codes with at least one good elementary school have higher values and stronger home price appreciation over the long term than homes in ZIP codes without any good elementary schools, where homes lost more value during the housing downturn but have seen stronger appreciation during the housing ...
‘Wantrepreneurs’ Have Ruined the Term ‘Entrepreneur’
I have said it many times in my videos and social media posts: the word “entrepreneur” is dead. Or useless, anyway. All the “wantrepreneurs” out there have seen to that. Now you’re probably saying to yourself, how can the word “entrepreneur” be dead? Well, it’s dead because of so many ...
3 Characteristics That Define the ‘Active’ Investor
When talking about real estate investors, we generally put them into one of two categories: active investors or passive investors. In this post, we’re going to focus on the active, but first, let’s briefly touch on what is meant by “passive.” This could be a HomeVestors franchisee (as I am, ...
Believe in Success—And it Will Come
This blog post is a little more philosophical than usual, but I really believe in this as a key to reaching success—whether that’s in your real estate investing, or in life in general. What I’m talking about is the “law of attraction,” which is, quite simply: what you think, you ...
6 Ways to Grow Your Rental Business Without Breaking the Bank
As the U.S. real estate market continues to recover from the financial crisis of the mid 2000s, there has been a noticeable flow of capital moving back into residential investment opportunities. From the fix-and-flip model to the long-term rental/hold strategy, we’ve seen a steady return to real estate as a ...
Property is, in many areas, considered to now be about fully valued; interest rates can seemingly only go up; and the current low rates have been low for so long now that some observers fear a market top. Why are other observers less concerned? Low Interest Rates Fuel Exuberance Abroad ...
Median Home Price Hits All-Time High
Single-family homes and condos sold for a median price of $231,000 in June 2016, up 6 percent from the previous month and up 9 percent from a year ago to a new all-time high — 1 percent above the previous peak of $228,000 in July 2005, according to ATTOM Data ...
If This is So Easy, Why Doesn’t Everyone Do It?
“If real estate investing is so great, why doesn’t everyone do it?” is a question that many wannabe or future investors ask themselves. I certainly did. Whether you’re already a full-time investor, a part-time investor or someone just considering whether to become one, it’s a question that you’ll have as ...
35 Best ‘Bad’ Neighborhoods to Buy a Home
Many down-and-out neighborhood housing markets across the country are on the rebound, thanks to a confluence of market forces working in their favor. Tight inventory of homes for sale, combined with a dearth of new homebuilding, is convincing buyers and investors to reconsider buying in what they once might have ...
Labor Force Ahead Will Have Far-Reaching Impact
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 4.0 million will in 2021. Even with a higher than usual rate of retiree-aged people working, U.S. economic growth will almost certainly remain ...
Not Getting Enough Out of Your Appointments? You May Not Be Putting Enough In
I sometimes hear investors fretting that they’re not getting enough out of their investment efforts. Well, perhaps they’re not putting enough in. What I’m specifically talking about is the “buy” appointment, which is where I see many investors getting frustrated the quickest. And that’s unfortunate, because that is the most ...
New Multi-Sourced National Property Data Warehouse Unveiled
RealtyTrac, the nation’s leading source for comprehensive property data, has just unveiled the ATTOM Data Warehouse, a new multi-sourced national property database. It will be curated by ATTOM Data Solutions, a newly created parent company operating a rapidly expanding property data licensing business along with existing consumer websites RealtyTrac.com, Homefacts.com ...
Looking to Accelerate Your Wealth in Real Estate Investing? Try a ‘Flip-and-Hold’
If you are already in the real estate business, then by now you have encountered the basic issues that first-time investors come across when starting out. You went through sourcing and acquiring the financing you needed to begin your initial investment, found the property or properties that you were interested ...
