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.
2020 Women to Watch: Bettina Hernandez
A former police officer in San Antonio, TX, Bettina Hernandez was faced with one of the most important decisions of her life. Her newborn unfortunately had some health issues and Bettina needed to find appropriate childcare or stay home to take care of her daughter. The decision to give up ...
2020 Women to Watch: Heather Self
Think Realty shines a light on some of the many women who are making waves in the real estate investing industry. The first home Heather Self purchased was through Habitat for Humanity. She was a single mom in her 20s, working full time, teaching life-skills classes to welfare recipients, the ...
2020 Women to Watch: Sonia Booker
Think Realty shines a light on some of the many women who are making waves in the real estate investing industry. Real estate entrepreneur, speaker, and author Sonia Booker was exposed to real estate investing long before she purchased her first investment property. Originally from Mississippi, she was introduced to ...
2020 Women to Watch: Deborah Razo
Think Realty shines a light on some of the many women who are making waves in the real estate investing industry. Just over 10 years ago, real estate investor Deborah Razo had an opportunity to start over. She was in a car accident that left her literally crushed; her head ...
2020 Women to Watch: Carrie Cook
Think Realty shines a light on some of the many women who are making waves in the real estate investing industry. Carrie Cook with Ignite Funding has 15 years’ experience in the real estate investment industry. In a time when many in the industry were getting out, Cook stuck with ...
2020 Women to Watch: Jamie Wooley
Think Realty shines a light on some of the many women who are making waves in the real estate investing industry. Real estate investor Jamie Wooley has always been an entrepreneur at heart, having a few businesses when she was in her early twenties. But those businesses didn’t lend to ...
2020 will be a year of caution for investors. Home prices have peaked in some markets and could be headed downward; the economy continues to slow; and trade wars or real wars could upset all economic plans. In this environment it pays to look at the low risk options: markets ...
Talking Loudly: The History of Hard Money
Typically, we think of credit as a relatively modern invention. However, “hard money” loans have been around since the earliest civilizations. The concept of hard money is one of the oldest kinds of credit financing. Many history experts believe that Hammurabi, the ruler of Babylon during the 18th century B.C.E., ...
2020 Women to Watch: Susan Naftulin
Think Realty shines a light on some of the many women who are making waves in the real estate investing industry. Susan Naftulin has been in the mortgage/real estate investing world since 1998. This former Philadelphia-based attorney left law for the mortgage industry where she managed the foreclosure and bankruptcies ...
Presidents’ Circle: Nancy Wallace-Laabs
In 2005, Think Realty Presidents’ Circle member, Nancy Wallace-Laabs, lived in Phoenix, AZ. When the uptick in home prices went even higher, she and her husband Brian decided to cash in. They sold their home for a substantial profit, packed up, and moved to Frisco, TX. It was a time ...
How to Find Off-Market Properties
A multiple listing service (MLS) is the most common place to find residential homes for sale, but it isn’t the best place to look if you’re hunting for an investment property, or a low-cost fixer upper. Experienced investors find off-market properties so they can find a deal that makes sense ...
'Roll Up Strategy' One trend Haldeman sees is a “roll up strategy” of consolidating products into one company, rather than each “new whiz bang thing” existing on its own. The end result will be fewer vendors providing more functionality to owners, he said. Coworking + Living As the gig economy ...
Why It’s Important to Have a Residential Lease Agreement in Place
A residential lease agreement is a legally binding contract connecting the landlord and tenant for the latter to rent an apartment, house, or place of residence from the former. Other names of this contract include a rental lease agreement or a landlord-tenant lease. As a landlord, you should have this ...
Foreclosures to Increase Despite no Recession
Most default servicers expect foreclosures to increase in 2020 despite no economic recession, according to a recent Auction.com survey. Auction.com announced the results of its 2020 Default Servicing Insights report, based on a survey of more than 40 of the nation’s largest bank and nonbank default servicing clients along with ...
You may have heard the saying, “Sit with winners. The conversation is different.” It basically means that the company you keep defines the type of conversations you have, and the results of those conversations can determine whether you “win” or “lose” in your personal or professional life. Being part of ...
Presidents’ Circle: Greg Slaughter
Not many young high schoolers know what they want to do with their life after graduation. But Think Realty Presidents’ Circle member Greg Slaughter did. He knew he would have a career in real estate. What he didn’t know is how long he’d have to wait to make it happen. ...
Steps to Closing You Need to Know
As a seasoned real estate investor, you’re probably well aware of the home closing process and that longer closing times are the new normal. If you’re buying, you submit an offer, get the home inspected, get approved for your loan and then do any final negotiations before handing the seller ...
Real estate acquisition and sale has traditionally been a slow-moving process. When I purchased my first home in 1987, a typical home-buying process took 30 days. Today, with modern technology, electronic communication, searchable databases, and the ability to execute contracts online, a typical home-buying process takes – 30 days. How ...
Chicago: The Rise of Silicon Prairie
The overall demand for multifamily housing in Chicago is strong, but the market’s performance is bifurcated. A steady increase in high-paying jobs has boosted the number of households earning more than $100,000, while the number of households earning less than $100,000 has declined. As a result, Lifestyle units are performing ...
How many times have you heard about the latest technology or new company “disrupting” an industry? The real estate industry hasn’t seen any significantly disruptive innovation; the edges of existing processes have evolved, a bit. Did We-Work “disrupt” leasing? Nope. They simply added some Silicon Valley sizzle to an existing ...
The use of color in home design is evolving as we enter a new decade. 2020 promises to be an empowering year of change, focused on colors that bring joy, serenity and clarity. Homeowners continue to move beyond how spaces look and toward how they make them feel. Sherwin-Williams 2020 ...
Lucas Haldeman started his career as a software developer at one of the first companies to put a database of apartments online. Today, he leads a cutting-edge PropTech firm, SmartRent, based in Scottsdale, Ariz. SmartRent is an enterprise home-automation company developing software and hardware that helps owners, property managers, and ...
"If you’re in the luckiest 1 percent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 percent.” - Warren Buffett Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie. These modern-day activists promote human welfare and social reforms and help to save lives across ...
If you are a new business owner, you must wear many hats until the company achieves a level of success to warrant support staff. You might find yourself being everything from CEO to receptionist. Eventually, though, most business owners will start replacing themselves, which is the proper way to grow ...
Meetups are one of the most beneficial ways to market your business and to meet like-minded individuals, and there are so many available. From interests like real estate investing to hiking, there are meetups for almost everyone in every city. Organizers post these networking events on meetup.com. To join, go ...
