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.

Report: Loan Limits Stifling New Home Sales in California and Arizona

Report: Loan Limits Stifling New Home Sales in California and Arizona

By Adam Artunian John Burns Real Estate Consulting A new report from John Burns Real Estate Consulting says the pool of qualified new home buyers appears to be running thin in California and there are problems also in Arizona. The cause is loan limits by government sponsored enterprises as those ...
Understanding UBIT

Understanding UBIT

How to Avoid Unintended Tax Implications in Your Real Estate IRA Everyone knows that you don’t pay taxes on the growth of assets in an IRA, right? Well, not always. It’s true that the asset growth in the classic investments made in a Traditional IRA—stocks, bonds and mutual funds, for ...
Investing

Applying Leverage

How to Harness the Power of IRA Non-Recourse Loans for Real Estate Investing Investors have always known the power of real estate to enhance their retirement portfolios, but few realize they have the option to leverage self-directed retirement accounts to purchase investment property. Since the creation of the IRA in ...
Following the Rules

Following the Rules

A Real Estate Investor's Guide to Mortgage Regulations It’s a common problem: Many people want to get started in real estate investment or buy more properties, but their biggest store of liquidity is in their IRAs and other retirement accounts. Fortunately for investors in that situation, there’s a simple and ...
What Can Be Held

What Can Be Held

Housing Your Next Real Estate Investment in an IRA I’ve spent most of my career overseeing the construction of multimillion-dollar apartment complexes, single-family dwellings and office property, as well as buying and selling raw land, commercial buildings and so on. Since 2004, the real estate portion of my business holdings ...
Demystifying the Process

Demystifying the Process

Setting Up a Self-Directed IRA is Not As Complicated As You Might Think We are often asked, “How do I go about setting up a self-directed IRA?” Many people think it is a complicated process because the idea is sold on the Internet as “an IRS loophole” or “little-known IRS secret” ...
5 Steps to Get You Started

5 Steps to Get You Started

Building Lasting Wealth for Your Future Technology has changed everything, including how we approach investing. In today's fast-paced world, companies providing financial and retirement services have had to adjust to meet consumer demand. New digital signature capabilities, online platforms and digital portals have provided consumers with on-demand access to their ...
Invest in Yourself

Invest in Yourself

Learn How Individual Retirement Accounts Can Work for Real Estate Investors Most people in America don’t have enough money for retirement. That’s a fact. Many people have retirement accounts, but they are lax with their personal oversight of their own investments. One way to turn the tide is by understanding ...
Start with the Basics

Start with the Basics

What Self-Directed IRAs Are All About As an avid real estate investor, you probably have heard about self-directed IRAs. Self-directed IRAs are one of the most powerful tools available for building wealth on a tax-deferred or tax-free basis. If the volatility in today’s traditional investment markets has wreaked havoc with ...
Rental Market Trends

Rental Market Trends

MSAs in South Region Rank at Top of RentRange List of Markets with Largest SFR Rent Increases from Q4 2014 to Q4 2015 Markets in the South region in Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee account for eight of the top 10 places on RentRange’s list of the 25 MSAs with ...
Boomers on the Move

Boomers on the Move

Landlords Report a Surge in Number of Older Renters Seeking Walkable Areas. We Think There May Be a Trend Afoot. Will Baby Boomer homeownership fall? We believe it will. Earlier this year, seven of us from John Burns Real Estate Consulting attended the National Multifamily Housing Conference, one of the ...
A Flip of the Numbers

A Flip of the Numbers

Home Flipping Up in 2015 After Four-Year Slide, RealtyTrac Year-End Report Shows RealtyTrac’s Year-End and Q4 2015 U.S. Home Flipping Report shows that 179,778 U.S. single-family homes and condos were flipped in 2015. That accounts for 5.5 percent of all single-family home and condo sales during the year. The 5.5 ...
Networking for Real Estate Investing Success

Networking for Real Estate Investing Success

The scenario: You're seriously considering investing in real estate this year. You have the money, perhaps in a 401(k) or IRA, or you will after selling an existing property. You’ve done your research and have even attended a few seminars put on by real estate legends. You’ve learned the best ...
Balancing Act: Crowdfunding Garners Enthusiasm But Requires Thoughtfulness

Balancing Act: Crowdfunding Garners Enthusiasm But Requires Thoughtfulness

More than three years after the passage of the JOBS Act, the SEC implemented its much-anticipated final rules legalizing Title III crowdfunding. So, what do the rules mean, and how will they apply to real estate investing in the future? The crowdfunding rules aim to allow business entities to raise ...
Shifting into Reverse

Shifting into Reverse

A 'Reverse' 1031 Exchange Requires Financial Strength, No Matter Which Route You Choose In a forward 1031 Exchange, the relinquished property is sold first, followed by the purchase of the replacement property. The proceeds from the sale of the relinquished property go toward the down payment or purchase price of ...
For the Record

For the Record

Using a Scope of Work - Especially a Detailed One - Can Prevent Misinterpretation and Save You Big Money No matter what size project we undertake, we always put together a scope of work. This can be as simple as writing specifications on a legal pad or a multiple-page document ...
What's It Going to Cost?

What’s It Going to Cost?

Understand the Costs Involved in Maintaining a Rental Property When Evaluating Whether to Make That Deal In recent articles, I have discussed the need for “financial literacy” and an understanding of the terms, concepts and fundamentals of cash-flow analysis. We have looked at estimating effective gross income. Now we turn ...
Summer Checklist

Summer Checklist

Get Your Summer Daylight Hours Back and Reduce Liability Risks by Focusing on These Top 10 Property Maintenance Tasks Ahh, summer vacation. The beach, an afternoon nap in the sun and a “little umbrella” drink. Or perhaps a mountain hike, dirt in your laces and a picnic lunch by a ...
To Sell or Not to Sell

To Sell or Not to Sell

| Teresa Bitler | Article | Operations
Carefully Consider Your Situation Before Rushing into a Sale of Your Investment Property You’ve held a property for years, and now, for one reason or another, you’re thinking it might be time to sell. Rushing into a sale, though, can be a costly mistake. Before you stick a “For Sale” ...
Profile: Stephany Haxel on a life-changing decision

Profile: Stephany Haxel on a life-changing decision

| James Hart | Article | Profiles
Economic conditions led Stephany Haxel to change her career. Through it, she's now changing others' lives for the better. Last year, Stephany Haxel lost her job as a corporate recruiter. And though it didn’t feel like it then, that life change has been a blessing. She and her husband, Jake, ...
2016 State of the Oklahoma City Housing Market

2016 State of the Oklahoma City Housing Market

The 2016 Oklahoma City housing market has continued with relatively steady growth and may actually represent an opportunity for a careful, savvy real estate investor willing to do his or her research and only buy when the time and the property are right. The Oil Factor and Economic Insulation First, any ...
Look Both Ways

Look Both Ways

| Linda Wienandt | Article | Profiles
2020 REI Succeeds by Using the Benefit of Hindsight as well as Anticipating its Customers' Needs Many people in the real estate investing space—whether they are the ones doing the deals or those providing the goods and services to investors—are so focused on what’s in front of them that they ...
ScottSklare_Gray_Web

The Deciding Factors

| Think Realty | Article | Operations
Our Street-Smart Panel Discusses What to Consider When Looking for Maximum ROI in Residential Property Investments Scott Sklare Synergy Real Estate Group Before getting into the specifics of how I decide where to invest for maximum ROI, I would like to take a step back and look at the bigger ...
Case Study: Flipping a Duplex to a Single-Family Home

Case Study: Flipping a Duplex to a Single-Family Home

As an investor and a person who loves the water, when I read about an open house for a duplex that has water access and a deeded dock for $109,000, I sat up and took notice. When I read on to see it has an attached double garage and a ...
Out-of-the-Bank Thinking

Out-of-the-Bank Thinking

| James Hart | Article | Profiles
One of the great things about the world of real estate investing is that it represents fantastic opportunities for people who can find more than one way to solve a problem—people like Emil Khodorkovsky, the president of Forbix Capital Corp., a California-based boutique mortgage banker for residential and commercial loans ...