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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 agents and real estate investors: a Win-Win for both blog by Doug Clark from the Zillow team

Real estate investors and real estate agents: a Win-Win for both

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
By Doug Clark Zillow for Pros Blog There are two groups of real estate professionals out there who might not realize how mutually beneficial their relationship can be: Agents, who are skilled at helping clients navigate all aspects of the buying and selling process, and investors, who are skilled at ...
Home flips getting squeezed on both sides of the equation but still average $70,000 profit, new study from RealtyTrac.com says

Home flips squeezed on both sides of the equation, but still average $70,000 gross profit, study says

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
The number of home flips is declining as available foreclosures decline, but profits are increasing, along with the time it takes to complete a flip, a new study from RealtyTrac.com shows. “Despite the rise in flipping returns in the second quarter, home flippers should proceed with caution in the next six ...
Builders and developers will start building more single-family homes for rent John Burns says in new study

Builders and developers will start building more detached single-family homes for rent, new study says

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
By John Burns Real Estate Consulting Builders and developers will now start building more detached homes for rent. For years, home builders have ignored 10 percent of housing demand, allowing resale homes to fill the demand. As shown below, 12.7 million of today’s 120 million households rent a detached home ...
Debt

4 Reasons Investors use Debt to Finance Real Estate

| Lawrence Fassler | Article | Funding, Operations, Topics
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be…” How could Shakespeare be wrong? Why should anyone take out debt, or other financing, on their real estate investments? Well, the quote from Hamlet is that of a father warning his son about the dangers of lending to friends, since hitching debt onto personal ...
Underwater properties have hit a plateau of 13 percent as home price appreciation has slowed says Daren Blomquist of RealtyTrac.com

Underwater homes have hit a plateau of 13 percent as home price appreciation slows

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
There were 7,443,580 U.S. residential properties that were seriously underwater — where the combined loan amount secured by the property is at least 25 percent higher than the property’s estimated market value — at the end of the second quarter 2015, according to a new report from RealtyTrac.com. This represents ...
institutional investor-driven and all cash sales decline as traditional buyers return to the market

Investor-driven sales continue decline as traditional buyers join the market

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
Distressed sales, cash sales and institutional investor sales in June were all down from a year ago to multi-year lows even as sales to first-time homebuyers and other buyers using FHA loans increased compared to a year ago in June and reached a two-year high in the second quarter, according ...
Foreclosures fall to 10 year low

Foreclosures fall to 10-year low, but some markets still slow to work through the system

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
Foreclosures continued to fall in the first half of 2015, dropping to a 10-year low across the U.S. and further tightening available housing inventory, according to a new study from RealtyTrac.com. While foreclosures are now in some cases below pre-housing-crisis levels, some specific markets still have a higher than normal ...
Lifestyle real estate investing can include vacation homes

3 tips for successful lifestyle real estate investing

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
By The Zillow Team There are three main categories of buying homes as a real estate investment: Cash flow investing — for people whose primary goal is rental income. Equity growth investing — for people whose primary goal is property appreciation. Lifestyle investing — for people whose goals include cash ...
will rising rental rates by landlords cause renters to move and buy homes

Are rising rental rates by landlords encouraging renters to move?

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
By John Burns Rents in the highest-quality apartments rose 4.4% last year, including an 8.0% jump in one West Coast portfolio. With a very high occupancy level (95.8%) and job growth exceeding construction levels in almost every major market in the country, landlords will continue to raise rents throughout the ...
Buy-to-rent still offers many opportunities for real estate investors in many markets a new analysis from RealtyTrac.com shows

New buy-to-rent analysis shows there are still good rental deals for real estate investors in many markets

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
A new buy-to-rent study from RealtyTrac.com shows the average potential annual gross rental yield still is holding strong, and only down slightly from a year ago. “In most areas of the country it is still a great time to buy residential property as rentals, given the continuing slide in homeownership ...
3 reasons to quit your day job and invest in real estate

3 reasons to quit your day job and invest in real estate

| Engelo Rumora | Article | Investment Strategy, Operations
Many people seek real estate investing for various reasons. Here are the three major reasons that I’ve come to find why most people quit (or decide to replace) their day jobs with real estate investing: Reason No 1: Because working for someone else... STINKS “If you don’t build your dream, ...
3 market trends for 2015 for the residential real estate investor: a mid-year analysis blog by Kevin Guz

Real estate investing trends so far in 2015 and what is ahead for the rest of the year

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
Our veteran real estate investors and bloggers have some opinions on the trends that have been happening so far in 2015 for real estate investors. Here they review those trends and then give some thoughts on what they see for the rest of 2015. 3 market trends in 2015 for the ...
all cash share of U.S. home sales and purchases drops to lowest level since November 2009 and institutional investor purchases at 15-year low

Housing sales moving from investor-driven “cash is king” to more traditional buyers, new report says

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
The all-cash share of U.S. home purchases in May dropped to the lowest level since November 2009, with institutional investor purchases dropping to a 15-year low, a new report from RealtyTrac.com shows. The cash sales share in May was close to its long-term average going back to January 2000 of ...
Home prices are up and days on the market are dropping

3 market trends in 2015 for the residential real estate investor: a mid-year analysis

| Kevin Guz | Article | Market & Trends, Operations
I write today from my perspective as a HomeVestor franchisee in Dallas, but I will write in broad enough terms that my observations here in Dallas, as an active real estate investor, are consistent with what investors are seeing nationwide. As I explain my observations from personal experience, I will ...
Report on low down payment buyers and affordability in metro markets from RealtyTrac

Best and worst markets for low down payment buyers and what it means for real estate investors

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
A new analysis of low-down payment buyers, such as first-time homebuyers, and boomerang buyers from RealtyTrac.com and Down Payment Resource  ranks 370 counties across the U.S. in terms of affordability and accessibility for these types of buyers and what it means for real estate investors. “This report helps investors identify ...
Buying a house "subject to the mortgage" could be a home run deal blog by RJ Palano in his series Art of the Deal for Personal Real Estate Investor Magazine

Buying a house “subject to the mortgage” could be a home run deal

| Think Realty | Article | Investment Strategy, Operations
How would you like to come up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning, with two outs and with the go-ahead run on third? Every young baseball player imagines being in that position, or in a position to win the World Series. It’s like that in the real ...
how one couple chose to invest $1 million in cash blog by Larry Arth for Personal Real Estate Investor Magazine

How one couple chose to invest $1 million in cash

| Larry Arth | Article | Funding, Operations
The couple was a farming family from just outside the city limits and had received an offer to purchase their land from a single-family-home developer. They had called ahead and wanted to sit down with me to discuss how to best invest their million-dollar windfall. As a real estate investment ...
Is a condo a good purchase for a first-time real estate investment property - The weekend real estate investor

Is a condo a good first rental property investment?

| Kevin Guz | Article | Investment Strategy, Operations
There are many, many condos out there. As an investor here in Dallas with HomeVestors, I believe they are a viable option for any investor to consider, not only here in Dallas, but across the U.S., but they do have some unique aspects that the investor must consider and understand ...
Bank repossessions fuel foreclosures to the highest level in 19 months as people continue to lose their homes says Daren Blomquist of RealtyTrac

Foreclosure filings by banks jump to a 19-month high

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
Foreclosure filings were reported on 126,868 U.S. properties in May 2015, up one percent from the previous month but up 16 percent from a year ago to a 19-month high, according to a new report from RealtyTrac. The U.S. foreclosure rate in May was one in every 1,041 housing units ...
Stan Humphries, chief economist for Zillow, says more low-end homes will come on the market in 2015.

Logjam at the low end of the housing market is caused by negative equity that is too deep

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
While the U.S. negative equity rate is dropping,  more than four million homeowners still owe the bank at least 20 percent more than their homes were worth, according to a release of the latest report from Zillow real estate research. "It's great news that the level of negative equity is ...
urban infill study for real estate investors by Pete Reeb, John Burns Real Estate Consulting

High-density detached urban infill is a booming real estate business so what are the challenges?

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
By Pete Reeb John Burns Real Estate Consulting Our urban infill feasibility business is booming, thanks to a confluence of trends that are creating heightened interest in high-density single-family detached urban infill housing deals: Gas expense. Uncertainty over gas prices and a growing desire for shorter commutes Time savings. Re-prioritizing ...
Zombie foreclosures down overall but still up in half of the metro areas surveyed says Daren Blomquist of RealtyTrac

Zombie foreclosures down overall, but still up from a year ago in half of U.S. metros

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
A new report shows that in the second quarter of this year there were that 127,021 homes actively in the foreclosure process had been vacated by the homeowners prior to a completed foreclosure, called zombie foreclosures, representing 24 percent of all active foreclosures, according to RealtyTrac. These owner-vacated foreclosure properties ...
Down payment averages drop to 14 percent on new home purchases RealtyTrac report says

Down payment average for home purchases drops to 14.8 percent, a three-year low

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
The average down payment for single family homes, condos and townhomes purchased in the first quarter was 14.8 percent of the purchase price, down from 15.2 percent in the previous quarter and down from 15.5 percent a year ago to the lowest level since the first quarter of 2012, according ...
Rental growth where you least expect it, single-family homes despite the hot apartment construction market

Rental growth where you least expect it: single-family homes

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
By David Guarino Senior Research Analyst John Burns Real Estate Consulting Take a drive through the urban portion of any major city and you will likely see cranes and construction crews dotting the landscape, building what appears to be an endless supply of apartment units. Your eyes are not deceiving ...
Home buyers purchasing below market value in 60 percent of markets according to a new study from RealtyTrac says Daren Blomquist, vp

Home buyers still purchasing below market value in 60 percent of markets, new study says

| Editorial Staff | Article, Market & Trends
Home buyers in about 60 percent of the markets surveyed in a new report by RealtyTrac.com are buying at below market value, while sellers are getting above-market prices in about 27 percent of the markets, the report shows. “Nationwide in April single family homes and condos sold for almost exactly ...