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.
Real estate investors often start small—a single-family home investment or a small apartment, office or retail building—before leveraging that early experience into multiple properties and a larger portfolio. The move up from new property investor to a seasoned property investor level can require training in the “school of hard knocks.” ...
2016 Think Realty Awards of Distinction
Humanitarian of the Year: An individual of highest integrity, standards and principle who not only excels in the real estate investing industry but selflessly contributes to the betterment of the world at large. Andy Williams, Recon Realty 214-306-4598 Recon Realty is a veteran- focused private real estate investment firm specializing in ...
There’s a natural tendency for investors to think more like home appraisers than home inspectors when evaluating a property, and it makes sense—you need to know how much you can expect to sell for when the time comes. But you can miss issues that affect your bottom line when you ...
In previous articles, I have discussed how to estimate effective gross income and operating expenses. With those figures at hand, we can now estimate our property’s net operating income (NOI). NOI is calculated as follows: Gross Scheduled Rents (+) Other Income (-) Vacancy Allowance = Effective Gross Rent (-) Operating Expenses = ...
In his best seller, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey provides seven concepts to guide the reader toward self-mastery and business success. The general theme of the book is that, in order to achieve success in one’s life, certain habits should be implemented. A successful life can ...
School’s out now, and one of the best parts of summer, I think, are the cookouts. Some of the best memories I have with friends and family have come from these get-togethers. A key part of our mission at Affinity Loss Prevention Services (ALPS) is to deliver seasonally relevant information ...
It’s your first time flipping a house, and it’s almost ready. Now what? That’s a question we hear a lot. While our business model is mostly wholesale properties, we will flip six or eight houses a year and have learned you have to start marketing the properties even before the ...
Digital Indispensable Tools are Today’s Classifieds
Long gone are the days when renters checked the classifieds. Today, landlords need a professional online presence to attract a steady flow of applicants and keep vacancy time to a minimum. Here several experts share what features matter most for this key marketing tool. WRITE LIKE A REALTOR Do renters ...
When Andy Williams returned from four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, he faced a tough transition. “I was in an anti-terrorism team,” he recalls. When he returned to civilian life, he managed and expanded the real estate portfolio he had begun to build from overseas while he was in ...
What Smart Property Managers Need to Know Now
Thanks to sky-high demand for rental housing, right now is a great time to be in the business of property management. It’s simpler than ever to find and place quality tenants in a property. Make no mistake, though: Property management is a business, one that’s shaped by larger trends in ...
If you have set up a self-directed IRA, you have probably done so with the intent to expand your investing options outside of securities and obtain higher returns. However, in pursuit of those returns, you may want to pause and consider whether you crossed any lines subjecting your IRA to ...
One of the simplest ways for companies to communicate financial well-being and shareholder value is to say that “the dividend check is in the mail.” Dividends—those cash distributions that some companies pay out regularly to shareholders from earnings—send a clear and powerful message about that company’s current performance and future ...
Thanks to a rocky recent history, American real estate has been dubbed the “land of milk and honey” for foreign investors. Countless people from across the globe are scooping up American houses like they’re hotcakes, spending an average of nearly $500,000 per purchase, which far surpasses the average U.S. home ...
RealtyTrac’s Q1 2016 U.S. Residential Property Loan Origination Report shows 1.4 million (1,415,511) loans were originated on U.S. residential properties (1 to 4 units) in the first quarter of 2016, down 12 percent from the previous quarter and down 8 percent from a year ago to the lowest level since ...
No recovery in U.S. property until 2017,” blared Reuters in 2009. Analysts were fearful that commercial real estate prices would fall another 50 percent from the peak in 2007. Building prices were forecast to take at least six to eight years to recover. Vacancies were soaring. Local malls, shopping plazas ...
Profile: Lukas Krause of Property Management Business Solutions
Property Management Business Solutions, North America’s largest property management company and franchisor of Real Property Management, promoted Lukas Krause from COO to CEO this past March. Think Realty recently asked him about the direction of his company and industry trends. As told to Susan Thomas Springer, edited for brevity. Think ...
Street Smart: Evaluating Online Lenders
Laura Catalino SVP of Investor Relations, Money360 949-579-2200 In evaluating and choosing an online lending platform, investors should consider all business conducted by the platform, alignment of interest (between the platform and investor) and the way in which the investor’s interest is secured. Platforms can be marketing portals, origination platforms ...
As the President of Affinity Enterprise Group, I am in a unique position to see interesting trends emerge as I look over the more than 60 companies under our company’s umbrella. In watching one of our newer brands, Think Realty, I have noticed two major gaps in particular in the ...
Brief History of the Twin Cities
Although Minneapolis and St. Paul are very nearly the perfect pair today, the Twin Cities were not always so happy to share their success with each other. Back in the 1890s, local law enforcement would actually arrest and jail census takers from the other city in order to prevent them ...
There are definite habits and traits that separate part-time and beginning real estate investors who are successful from those who are not. There are so many, in fact, that we can’t cover them all in one article. So let’s just focus on one contrast in particular. As is often the ...
Twin Cities Real Estate Investing in 2016
The Twin Cities are ideally situated to generate wealth for investors hoping to access mid-range buyers who value family, safety and stability. A True ‘Crystal-Ball Market’ In 2014, Trulia researchers, headed by the website’s chief economist, Jed Kolko, pulled all the available housing data from the past 24 years on ...
The 2016 Twin Cities Housing Market At A Glance
The Twin Cities housing market has become a buyer's market in 2016 thanks to an improving economy, a lower jobless rate and rising equity. A lack of inventory is slowly pushing up sales prices. But the recovery is uneven, with some areas seeing fast appreciation, while others are languishing, according ...
Why You Need to Become a Real Estate Agent
For many residential real estate investors, it’s still not the typical way of doing business. But if you want to power up your operations, you need to seriously consider becoming a licensed real estate agent, according to Angie and Dan Francis, the owners of Texas-based StepStone Realty. Being both an ...
Like every industry, real estate has been going through a transformation over the last few years. Where it was once possible to find many properties to purchase and either rehabilitate, sell or use as rental properties for cash flow, it can now be quite challenging. Approaches that used to work ...
Who could have predicted that experience trading stock options, starting ministries and hunting elk would combine to form a successful real estate investment company? That’s the interesting path Kent Davis and Chuck Bates have traveled as co-founders of Equistream, formerly Kingdom First Holdings, based in Tampa, Fla. Today, Equistream buys large ...
